Singapore had the most polluted air of any city in the world on Wednesday as smoke from wildfires in Indonesia blanketed Southeast Asia and forced schools in Malaysia to close.
Air quality in the city fell into the “very unhealthy” range on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Swiss air-quality monitoring company IQAir, which ranked it first for pollution globally.
The Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur had held the top spot earlier in the day.
The National Environment Agency, which measures air quality on its own Pollutant Standards Index, put air in all five regions of Singapore at unhealthy levels. That’s the index's band of 101 to 200, below its "very unhealthy" band. At 7am on Thursday, the agency's 24-hour reading stood at 109 in central Singapore and 111 in the east.
The agency forecast dry conditions over most of the southern part of Southeast Asia in the next few days, which it said would keep the risk of fires and haze elevated.
In Malaysia, all schools, kindergartens and childcare centres in Batu Pahat, in the southern state of Johor, nearly 140km northwest of Singapore, were ordered closed after the district’s Air Pollutant Index reached 203, in the “very unhealthy" band, on Tuesday morning, the local disaster management committee said, adding that reopening would depend on air quality readings. The order affects nearly 200 schools, kindergartens and nurseries in Batu Pahat.
The haze has been caused by uncontrolled fires in Indonesia, where the practice of clearing farmland by burning has combined with an intensifying El Nino, a natural climate cycle drying out the landscape. The number of hotspots last month was the highest since 2015, according to SiPongi, the fire-monitoring platform run by the Indonesian forestry ministry.
In 2015, the regional haze caused widespread disruption and diplomatic tensions between Indonesia and its neighbours.
The campaign group Greenpeace identified over 20 palm oil, pulp and sugar companies whose land concessions contained sources of smoke from the fires, including several with links to Malaysia and Singapore.
The haze arrives days before the Singapore Grand Prix, the Formula One race, kicks off on Friday. The race's organiser, Singapore GP, said on Tuesday it would work closely with the relevant agencies “to assess the situation before making any collective decisions regarding the event” if the haze caused problems with visibility, public health or operations.
A Formula One spokesperson said conditions weren’t at any level of concern, Bloomberg reported.
Last week organisers of the Standard Chartered Marathon in Kuala Lumpur cancelled a children’s race due to health concerns but went ahead with other races, including the full and half marathons. In 2015, the marathon had been cancelled.
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