A broad of toxic haze is enveloping parts of Indonesia and spreading into Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, arsenic weeks-long wildfires proceed to burn.
Millions of radical crossed ample swathes of South East Asia person been exposed to the smog, which successful immoderate areas has fuelled "acutely unhealthy" contamination much than 15 times the World Health Organization's recommended level.
Many of the ongoing fires person been burning crossed Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo since mid-July – underpinned by a alleged Super El Niño that is exacerbating drought conditions.
Between July and August, Indonesia's Health Ministry recorded implicit 50,000 cases of respiratory infections linked to onshore and wood fires.
More than 12,000 of those cases are of children nether the property of five.
Rizma Nur Fatimah, a 19-year-old teaching adjunct astatine a schoolhouse successful Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan, told the BBC that the smog successful her schoolroom had go truthful heavy "you couldn't adjacent spot your ain feet".
"Even wrong the house, with everything closed, the haze inactive got in," she said. "We've been surviving with this since I was born. It's the aforesaid each year, truthful we've astir go resigned to it. But this twelvemonth is worse."
Misbah, a 23-year-old parent from adjacent Pengayuan village, said her three-year-old girl had developed "a cough, a sore pharynx and a runny nose" during the haze.
Some 1,300 kilometres away, successful the Philippine land state of Palawan, residents reported akin symptoms, including itchy eyes, chemoreceptor and throat.
"We are present experiencing mild headaches," said Dr Precious Bañas-Melad. "My relative who isn't allergic to thing started processing allergies. My hubby is the archetypal 1 who had itchy eyes and throat."
Malaysia, meanwhile, has reported rising cases of asthma and conjunctivitis amid worsening aerial prime nationwide arsenic fume continues to drift crossed the border.
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