‘I can’t take it anymore’: Desperation drives Indonesian residents from epicentre of Southeast Asia’s haze crisis

When the smoke from forest fires turned a thick, acrid yellow, casting an apocalyptic glow over Palangkaraya, Kartika Sari decided to grab her child and flee the Indonesian city at the epicentre of the haze crisis smothering Southeast Asia.

The 32-year-old pharmacist and her three-year-old daughter have for weeks been inhaling toxic air in Palangkaraya, a city of 240,000 that has been engulfed in poisonous darkness by smoke from peat land set alight to clear land for palm oil plantations.

“The smoke was no longer white, it was yellow,” she said from an evacuation centre in Banjarmasin, a six-hour drive from Palangkaraya.

“Usually we just endured it, even though we had headaches and felt nauseous. But it has got so bad lately, that I can’t take it anymore. I can’t even breathe fresh air.”

Now she waits in limbo in a basic shelter with nine other evacuees, mostly children, including a one-year-old boy suffering from a severe cough and diarrhoea.

Authorities say the fires from slash-and-burn farming in Borneo and neighbouring Sumatra have killed 10 people so far, some of whom died while fighting the blazes and others from the pollution.

Respiratory illnesses in Palangkaraya have soared as the choking smog has worsened in recent weeks.

While many have relocated to safety elsewhere with friends and relatives, others have no choice but to stay behind despite the risks posed by the noxious haze.