'How is it possible?': Students protest Indonesian haze

PALANGKARAYA: Hundreds of students protested late Friday in Indonesia's Palangkaraya, demanding the government do more to tackle a wildfire crisis that has shrouded their city and the wider region in toxic haze for months.

The students, many wearing surgical masks, gathered under an eerily orange sky, with severely reduced visibility, and waved banners urging authorities to declare a national emergency to free up more aid.

"The officials are morons, yet they get fantastic perks while the lives of the common people are tragic," read one protest placard nailed to a wall outside the office of the governor of Central Kalimantan, an Indonesian province on the island of Borneo where the fires are taking place.

The demonstrators sang the patriotic song Indonesia Pusaka and engaged in light skirmishes with police.

No injuries or arrests were reported. As night fell, the protesters cleared up their rubbish before dispersing peacefully.

"We call upon the Central Kalimantan provincial government to state clearly that it is unable to mitigate this disaster, so that the situation may be officially designated a national disaster," protest leader Yuyun Sanjaya told the crowd.

"How is it possible that such thick, dense smoke is being inhaled by helpless elderly people and newborn infants, and the government simply lets it happen?"

Wildfires have burned more than 1.9 million hectares in the nine months to September, according to deforestation monitor Nusantara Atlas — a figure the government has neither confirmed nor denied.

The resulting haze has sickened hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia and reached as far as Malaysia, Singapore and East Timor.

Amid diplomatic objections from neighbouring countries, patience has also been running thin at home, with sporadic anti-government protests.

On Thursday, Indonesian schoolchildren prayed for rain on Java island, where fires have also ravaged several regencies and conservation areas.