A-Z of Singapore - H for Haze

This is perhaps the most apt entry for this post, something live, something concurrent

Every year, around the dry season (June - October), farmlands in neighbouring Indonesia are burnt down to pave way for palm oil planting. Around this time, the farmers practice the traditional slash and burn way of clearing the farmlands and this causes a rise in pollution levels in Singapore

Over the past few days, the whole of Singapore has been covered in smog and last two days since, it has risen to intolerable, like there's a mass Ganapathi Homam going on, as someone joked

All around, you can see people sporting swanky masks, with fancy names like N95 and so on, that I really got to wondering if this was the case when SARS hit the island big time ten years back.Almost every person on the streets has been wearing one and when you don't wear one, you feel a little out of place. No, seriously

While diplomatic tensions between both countries has escalated and some sort of a blame game is being played, the lovely Singaporeans go out of their way to help one another, distributing free masks being one of the many ways

The Pollution Index soared up to its highest ever (401) yesterday, with that being categorized as hazardous to live in, if sustained. But thankfully, it has been coming down and right now, as I am typing this, everything seems clear outside.

Lets hope the problem doesn't last long