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Published: Friday June 12, 2009 MYT 1:18:00 PM
Updated: Friday June 12, 2009 MYT 8:09:51 PM

Air quality declines in Klang Valley


PETALING JAYA: Air quality in parts of the country have deteriorated due to local peat fires in Selangor and forest fires in Indonesia bringing over haze to Malaysia.

At 5pm Friday, Port Klang and Cheras recorded unhealthy API readings of 136 and 109 respectively. Shah Alam’s API reading went up to 120 from the 95 recorded at 11am.

Overall, 21 areas recorded good air quality while 26 areas recorded moderate air quality readings.

Other areas close to heading into the unhealthy quality range of between 101 and 200 include Kajang (100), Batu Muda (99), Petaling Jaya (93) and Putrajaya (92).

Compared to Thursday, yesterday’s API readings showed a general decline in air quality in the Klang Valley.

Thursday’s API readings for Petaling Jaya was 76 while Cheras recorded a reading of 73.

The three peat fires identified in Klang and Sepang coupled with trans-boundary haze from Indonesia has led to unhealthy Air Pollutant Index (API) readings in Port Klang, Shah Alam and Cheras.

The fires are a regular occurrence in Sumatra and Borneo during the dry season due to fires being started to clear land before the planting season starts.

The dry season also occurs in Malaysia which tends to ignite peat fires that compounds the annual haze problem.

As of 5pm, visibility in Subang was at 5km. Petaling Jaya recorded visibility readings of 2km at 9am which later improved to 4km at 5pm.

Visibility at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport went to as low as 3km to which an airport spokesperson said the situation was being monitored.

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