Malaysia Issues Visibility Warning For Malacca Strait Shipping - Reuters

[hatrack]

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia on Monday warned ships sailing through Asia's busiest waterway to guard against accidents as a choking smog smothering the region cut visibility.

Visibility along the narrow Malacca Strait, which links Asia to the Middle East and Europe, has been sharply reduced to less than 1.6 km from a usual 19 km, as smoke from raging Indonesian forest fires showed no signs of abating. The strait, traversed by more than 50,000 ships a year, carries 40 percent of world trade, including 80 percent of the energy supplies of China and Japan.

"We have alerted ships using the strait to take extra care due to the poor visibility," an official of the Malaysian marine department said. "This is dangerous for small boats, but so far there has been no incident."

Forest fires are burning mainly in Indonesian Borneo and on Sumatra island, also in Indonesia. Most are deliberately lit. Each dry season, forest is illegally torched to clear land for agriculture, blanketing parts of Southeast Asia in smog. Thick haze covered much of peninsular Malaysia on Monday, with the capital's iconic Twin Towers barely visible from a distance of 3 km. The Subang airport just outside Kuala Lumpur was closed to small planes as visibility fell to just 1.5 km, an airport official said.

EDIT

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061009/3/2r28k.html

[phantom power]

1. This must look "interesting" from satellite.

"interesting" in a sort of "oh fuck what have we done" sort of way.

[Nihil]

2. Strange that ...

> Forest fires are burning mainly in Indonesian Borneo and on Sumatra
> island, also in Indonesia. Most are deliberately lit. Each dry season,
> forest is illegally torched to clear land for agriculture, blanketing
> parts of Southeast Asia in smog.

I didn't think the Indonesian government was particularly liberal
or easy-going on laws being openly (and very visibly) broken ...?

Of course, one would probably be causing diplomatic offence if one
were to suggest that such tacit encouragement to break the law was
tantamount to government approval of such illegal, immoral and
totally brain-dead actions.
:eyes: