Malaysia says Indonesia to open airspace for cloud seeding to tackle haze

Indonesia has given Malaysian agencies ⁠official permission ⁠to enter its ⁠airspace to conduct cloud seeding operations, Malaysia’s environment minister has said, part of both countries’ efforts to combat the haze blanketing the region.Indonesia has been stepping ‌up efforts to slow the spread of haze caused by forest and land fires across several provinces, which this month led to dozens of school closures, including in neighbouring Malaysia.Malaysia’s national disaster management agency and its meteorological department ⁠were currently preparing schedules for cloud-seeding operations in shared border ‌locations, to be coordinated with the Indonesian military, Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Arthur Joseph Kurup ‌said in a statement.Women wear face masks during haze in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on August 13. Photo: EPAMalaysia was also prepared to ⁠offer help ⁠to Indonesia in extinguishing fires, with any specific requests to be brought to cabinet ‌for further action, Kurup said.He added that both countries would be ‌escalating their firefighting and ‌fire prevention programmes ahead of national holidays in the ‌coming weeks, including the Malaysia-day" class="entity-link entity-event" data-entity-id="192050" data-entity-type="event">Malaysia Day celebrations in Sarawak state on ⁠September 16.Sarawak, which borders Indonesia’s Kalimantan province on Borneo island, ⁠has been worst hit by the haze.Six districts in Sarawak recorded unhealthy air pollution index (API) readings on ‌Monday, according ‌to data released by the environment department. Unhealthy API levels were also recorded in eight other districts across four states on the Malaysian peninsula, the data showed.