Malaysian low-cost carrier Firefly has announced the extension of its flight suspensions between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore through Wednesday as persistent smoke from raging fires in Indonesia continues to blanket large parts of Southeast Asia. The airline characterized the continued cancellations as a proactive safety measure in response to hazardous weather and visibility conditions.

The announcement coincided with updated figures from air quality monitor IQAir, which ranked Singapore and the Malaysian capital as the two most polluted cities globally on Tuesday. According to the Swiss monitoring firm, Singapore’s Air Quality Index hit 199, while Kuala Lumpur registered 183—both well past the threshold generally considered unhealthy for the general population.

The widespread fires, primarily concentrated on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo, reportedly represent the country's most intense blazes in over a decade, exacerbated by a strong El Nino weather pattern. Representatives of the Malaysian regime, including Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan, purportedly acknowledged Jakarta's deployment of personnel but criticized existing regional frameworks, asserting that current ASEAN disaster protocols supposedly fail to properly classify cross-border haze as a natural disaster.

Amid the ongoing environmental disruption, the Singaporean administration has reportedly reintroduced subsidised medical care for haze-related ailments, mirroring measures last taken in 2015. Meanwhile, schools in Malaysia remain shuttered in several districts despite a slight, localized improvement in air quality metrics.

Source: www.aljazeera.com