Seth Mydans, Kuala Lumpur – Tigers and elephants are fleeing the burning jungles. Birds are falling from the murky skies. Schoolchildren are fainting at their desks. Ships are colliding at sea.
As a filthy haze from vast Indonesian forest fires continues to darken the sky across seven Southeast Asian nations, illness, ecological destruction and economic hardship are growing.
After four months, the man-made fires, set on the heavily forested islands of Borneo and Sumatra to clear land for crops, are spreading rather than shrinking. And with Indonesia suffering its worst drought in 50 years – a result of El Nino weather disturbances – no one knows how many weeks or months it will be until the monsoon rains finally arrive to douse the flames.
Smoke from the fires, mingling with urban pollution, has spread from Indonesia into Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Papua New Guinea.
The calamity coincides with the worst economic crisis to hit the region in many years, darkening people's spirits even as it shortens their daylight hours.
Like the economic slump, it could have been foreseen and perhaps prevented. In both cases, warnings were ignored because the money was just too good. With government officials and private businesses growing wealthy together, short shrift was given to the environment.
A weak response
As with the economic crisis, the government response to the ecological disaster has been ineffectual and hampered by corruption.
Well-connected palm-oil plantation owners and pulp-and-paper companies in Indonesia have continued clearing land by burning off vast tracts of jungle, seemingly immune to laws or punishment. Firefighting has been disorganized, and villagers in some of Indonesia's worst-hit areas say they have received little or no help.
"The way the government is handling the forest fires simply shows its inability to face such crises," Emmy Hafield, director of Indonesia's leading environmental group, said last week. "So far, the government's commitment is not wholehearted; it is only a token."
The immediate effects of the smog have been dramatic. Airports have closed and flights have been canceled around the region. Uncounted days of work have been lost as factories and mines have shut down and hundreds of thousands of people have fallen ill with respiratory ailments.
Huge amounts of overseas investment are draining away as foreign business people begin to avoid the region and as tourism – a $26 billion industry in Southeast Asia – declines sharply.
"The haze is not only a national disaster; it has become an international disaster for the tourism industry," said Andi Mappi Sammeng, the director general of Indonesia's Tourism Department.
Tourism affected
Smog has dimmed the sun on beaches from Phuket in Thailand to the east coast of Malaysia to the southern Philippines. Hotels, restaurants and retailers in Singapore complain of a falling tourist trade.
The longer-term costs are harder to gauge.
The fires have burrowed deep into vast peat bogs and seams of coal, where experts say they may continue to smolder for years. Environmentalists say that if the drought and the forest fires continue for much longer, and resume again when the next dry season arrives in June, the haze could be a continuing blight.
Already it has affected agriculture, and food shortages and rising prices are predicted. Reduced sunlight is slowing the growth of fruits and vegetables and reducing yields of corn and rice. The smoke is tainting cocoa crops. Birds, bees and insects have disappeared in many areas, disrupting pollination.
Indonesia is the world's leading producer of robusta coffee beans, used largely for instant coffee. It is the world's second leading producer of cocoa and palm oil and is a major producer of rubber. All have been affected.
The delayed monsoon and the spreading drought have been caused by the warming Pacific waters of the El Nino weather pattern, which has begun to affect the region with unusual power.
"This year's El Nino was being predicted by various experts as one of the most severe this century," the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report last month. "The food supply and water situation, therefore, is likely to deteriorate significantly."
Deaths reported
The island of New Guinea – including the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya and the nation of Papua New Guinea – is already suffering. Hundreds of people are reported to have died from starvation, dysentery and influenza. Haze is slowing deliveries of relief supplies to remote areas that can be reached only by air. Officials say hundreds of thousands of people are in urgent need of food and water.
If the smog lingers, the quality of life in hard-hit areas like much of Malaysia could be seriously affected, and some foreign companies and investors – already hurt by the economic downturn – could begin to avoid the region.
Some embassies and large foreign companies have already withdrawn many of their employees from cities like Kuala Lumpur, where white smog blurs the skyline and sears throats and lungs and eyes.
William Jackson, a U.S. government medical official, said no region had suffered through such a prolonged bout of pollution from cars, factories and fires. "The bad news is we just don't have the answers we need," he said. "The data just doesn't exist."
Some doctors say there could be a severe long-term toll on health that may not show itself for years, particularly among the young, the old and people with respiratory problems.
Neighbors miffed
The disaster is putting a strain on the carefully nurtured good fellowship of the region. Questions are being raised among some of Indonesia's neighbors about its handling of the fires, following warnings in past years about forest-burning.
"If Indonesia refuses to address its deadly pollution seriously, its neighbors must force the issue," The Bangkok Post said, with a bluntness unusual in Southeast Asia.
But the Indonesian government – while issuing an apology – has continued to duck responsibility, blaming the weather. And the big plantation owners have hurried to distance themselves, pointing their fingers at small farmers and wood thieves.
Indeed, the palm-oil producers, who have set most of the fires, may be among the few beneficiaries. They have cleared huge new areas for planting, and as the disaster has spread, palm-oil prices have risen sharply on the world market.