Jakarta tells Singapore to stop 'acting like a child' over forest fire smog

Indonesia yesterday accused Singapore of acting "like a child" over choking smog from forest fires in Sumatra that has triggered the city-state's worst environmental crisis in more than a decade.

The escalation in tensions between tiny Singapore and its vast neighbour came as haze levels enveloping the island hit a record high, shrouding the whole city.

As the acrid smell crept into flats and medical masks sold out, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the crisis could last weeks and urged people to pull together.

The city-state ratcheted up pressure on Jakarta to take "definitive action" to extinguish the fires - but Indonesia, which insists that Singapore-owned plantations on Sumatra also share the blame, hit back.

"Singapore should not be behaving like a child and making all this noise," Agung Laksono, the minister co-ordinating Indonesia's response, said. "This is not what the Indonesian nation wants, it is because of nature."

His comments came as Indonesia's foreign ministry hosted an emergency meeting in Jakarta attended by Singapore's National Environment Agency chief executive Andrew Tan.

Singapore's air pollution index hit an all-time high yesterday, soaring to 371 at 1pm, well past the previous record of 321 set the night before. Any reading above 300 is "hazardous" while a reading above 400 is deemed "life-threatening to ill and elderly people," government guidelines say.