PETALING JAYA: Stay vigilant of the current haze situation and warning from the authorities, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi advises the public.
On his Facebook page, the Deputy Prime Minister urged the public to verify and keep track of the latest information from the official websites of government agencies such as the Environment Department and Malaysian Meteorological Department or the myCuaca mobile application.
“The country is facing a dynamic change of weather following the monsoon transition to warm and dry weather as well as the higher reading of the Air Pollutant Index (API) in certain states.
“I would like to remind the public to stay updated of the latest haze situation,” said Ahmad Zahid, who is also chairman of the Central Disaster Management Committee, on Monday (Oct 2).
He said he had instructed all relevant agencies to prepare for any possibilities that could affect the people’s lives.
Climatologists warned that the country would suffer higher API air quality due to transboundary haze from Indonesia until Oct 4.
This is due to the occurrence of El Nino and the positive Indian Ocean Dipole phenomenon, leading to drier weather than in the past years.
These few days, a number of areas on the West coast of Peninsular Malaysia recorded unhealthy API.
Asean nations raised their alert level of the transboundary haze risk to level 2 last Sunday, with many nations bracing for high pollution readings due to smoke from the Kalimantan forest burning in Indonesia.
Level 2 indicates that escalating hotspot activities with moderate to dense smoke haze are observed over two days or more, with dry weather persisting and prevailing winds blowing the smoke from the hotspots towards neighbouring countries.
