The rescue teams are working animal by animal against a regional disaster. Dozens of critically endangered orangutans have been evacuated from rampant wildfires burning across Indonesia, conservation groups said, as a toxic haze cloaks southern Southeast Asia.
The West Kalimantan conservation agency and the Indonesian non-profit YIARI said a team evacuated 51 orangutans from locations in the province between August 6 and October 19, and forestry ministry figures suggested the number rescued across Kalimantan in recent months could be as high as 96. The latest rescue came Saturday, when three agencies sedated a 20-year-old male in Hampangen village, Central Kalimantan, gave him a health examination and moved him to a rehabilitation centre.
The fires, burning on Borneo and Sumatra and intensified by a turbo-charged El Niño, have triggered a months-long pollution spell: schools closed, respiratory conditions surging in humans and animals, and outdoor activity restricted across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and East Timor.
On Sunday, pollution again ranged from unhealthy to very unhealthy, and air-quality monitor IQAir ranked Singapore and Kuala Lumpur among the world's top five most polluted major cities. Singapore officials said the city has now endured its longest stretch of unhealthy air since the severe 2015 haze crisis, in a spell that began October 5.
Indonesia's transport ministry said roughly 2,400 flights have been affected by the haze since mid-August — a measure of how a fire season in the forests of Borneo now disrupts an entire region's skies, schools and lungs.
