When the sun hits the smog enveloping Indonesian Borneo, it turns everything the colour of rust. Cars, houses and streets appear and disappear out of a dim russet fog. There are few better words than "apocalyptic" to describe the way this looks.
But it's at night, in the quiet darkness, that mother-of-three Dianyra Eka Nastiti grows most fearful. "Sometimes at night my baby's chest makes a rattling sound," she says. "She was hospitalised for bronchopneumonia when she was just a month and a half old, and every single night I worry: Will my child cough tomorrow?
Dastiti lives in Palangkaraya, at the frontline of a months-long environmental catastrophe that has blanketed large parts of Southeast Asia in a toxic haze. Wildfires have torched some 1.9 million hectares across Indonesia since the start of the year, according to open-access satellite platform Nusantara Atlas – an area roughly the size of the US state of New Jersey, or the entire nation of Fiji. One million hectares are thought to have burned in September alone.
But the toxic fallout is larger still. Swathes of smouldering forest, swamp and peatlands have turned the air thick with microparticles and carbon monoxide, creating a noxious cloud that has swaddled Indonesia and drifted as far as Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. As of mid-October, Indonesia's Health Ministry had recorded more than 277,000 cases of people suffering from chronic coughs and acute respiratory infections.
More than 62,000 of those were infants and toddlers under the age of five. "The forest fires have had a huge impact, especially on everyone's health," says 22-year-old Natari Victoria, who was admitted to a health centre in Palangkarya after suffering from a cough for more than a week. "I have young cousins, including babies, who are coughing too.
It's really taking a toll on them." Haze and smoke from peat fires contain a complex mixture of pollutants that pose serious health risks to the human body. Among these are tiny microparticles which can penetrate deep into the lungs and, in some cases, enter the bloodstream, causing inflammation, chronic lung diseases and increased risk of premature death. Another concern is the toxic greenhouse gases that are being unleashed into the air.
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