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CHIANG MAI, Thailand: The haze that has blanketed northern Thailand for nearly two weeks may have been caused by freak weather patterns, experts say, warning of possible serious long-term health concerns.
While authorities in the northern tourist hotspot of Chiang Mai have urged tribal farmers to stop burning their fields and even banned street vendors from grilling meats, experts say unusual weather patterns are more likely to blame.
The haze, caused by slash-and-burn farming and wildfires in northern Thailand and parts of Laos and Myanmar, has choked eight northern Thai provinces for nearly two weeks, affecting some five million people.
More than 13,000 people in the region have sought treatment for respiratory problems and other ailments blamed on the haze, the government said.
Experts believe the cold winter may have trapped the smoke close to the ground and prevented it from dissipating in the atmosphere.
Montree Chantawong, an environmental activist with a Thai organisation called Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance, said the haze could be the result of an unusually long winter in northern Thailand.
The high pressure system associated with the cool weather may have prevented the smoke from rising high into the atmosphere, he said.
"Normally in March the weather will reach a higher temperature, so the smoke will dilute automatically," he added.
Earlier this week, air pollution in Chiang Mai was three times the level considered healthy, prompting the government to pass out hundreds of thousands of surgical masks and to urge children and the elderly to stay indoors.
Air quality has improved significantly in recent days, but on Friday remained at a level considered unhealthy, health officials said.
Vendors on the streets of Chiang Mai who are usually seen grilling meats for sale have all been shut down, but the city smells of smoke everywhere.
The government has also stepped up its patrols to stamp out forest fires in the hills.
Ja Phet, a retired farmer from the hill tribes along Thailand's border with Myanmar, said farmers normally burn their fields at this time of year, but he struggled to think of a time when their activities had caused such a dense haze.
"Burning of farmland is a regular activity for hill farmers in this season, but this amount of smoke is unusual," Ja Phet said.
Rains that normally wet the soil in northern Thailand in January failed to arrive this year, making conditions perfect for wildfires, Montree added.
Steve Thompson, who heads an environmental group called Images Asia - EDesk, said the El Nino weather pattern over the Pacific Ocean may have caused the unusual temperatures in northern Thailand.
El Nino is the occasional warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean that typically happens every four to seven years and disrupts weather patterns from the western seaboard of Latin America to East Africa for 12-18 months.
It has been blamed for flooding in the Horn of Africa and Bolivia, more severe winter monsoons in South Asia, and a lengthy drought in Australia.
James Fahn, author of a book called "A Land on Fire" on the environmental effects of Southeast Asia's economic boom, compared the haze to the far larger Indonesian one that blanketed much of the region in 1997.
"What we don't know is the long term health impact" of such environmental disasters, he said.
"This kind of haze is like smoking cigarettes, but with a cigarette, you only take one once in a while. This is continuous. So the big question is that doctors are afraid that in the future they will be higher incidents of lung cancer," Fahn added. - AFP/yy
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