Authorities evacuated 167 psychiatric patients from a South Kalimantan hospital as Indonesia’s wildfire haze worsened; officials are preparing to move them off-site if smoke cannot be controlled. More than 170,000 respiratory illness cases have been recorded since August.
More than 40,000 of the respiratory cases involved toddlers, and reported illnesses range from mild coughs to pneumonia. The health ministry counted 113,336 wildfire-related cases by 9 September, up from 50,891 on 1 September.
At least 895,657 hectares have burned since January. Independent forest-monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas detected about 734,000 hotspots nationwide as of Wednesday, more than 30% above 2019. Indonesia has deployed over 54,000 personnel and dozens of aircraft for water bombing, but authorities say the vast territory and difficult peatland conditions make the fires hard to extinguish.
