Tag: haze Malaysia

Haze In Kuala Lumpur

When Wuan opened the door early this morning and looked out, she remarked, “It is hazy.”

The view outside was obscured by the curtain and then a frangipanni tree. Although I could not see, I could smell. The air reeked of the unmistakable burnt stench. I thought I had escaped the smoke haze when I left Penang. Looks like there is no reprieve for me yet. At its worse in Penang, visibility was 5km. On normal clear days, I could see planes landing at the airport in the distance. On that particular day, it was all a blur.

Smoke haze is common in the South-east Asian region from July to October. Uncontrolled forest fires in Malaysia, Kalimantan, Jawa and Sumatra blankets the entire region with smoke. Daily activities are disrupted and health affected. Among the more common problems related to smoke haze are respiratory ailments and conjunctivitis. It is advisable to wear a N95 mask that is designed to block airborne particles when outdoors, and drink more water.

The Department of Environment under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment publishes the Air Pollutant Index (API) in their website. The index is updated twice daily – 11am and 5pm. The website also has an advisory section on the health measures that should be taken for various levels of the API.

Laying Low


Photo taken on July 10, 2005.

The haze has lifted somewhat in Penang. Visibility is 5km or more. The sooty stench that had been hanging in the air has subsided. Penangites can breathe a restrained sigh of relief for the moment. This is a welcome change, albeit temporary. Those few days that the island and much of the mainland was enveloped in a veil of blurriness was beginning to affect my respiratory system.

On the other hand, my mind has been smoggy of late. I have been engulfed in a series of yet unresolved issues. Perhaps I have been impatient. I could have been running ahead of each and every of them, with the misguided belief that I could get them sorted out speedily. It has not been so. Moreover, I am alarmed to see that, somehow, my funds have been draining out faster than they are being replenished. For the life of me, I could not figure out what and where they have been channelled to.

To top it all off, I am approaching another crossroad in life. From Saturday onwards, I will be living without the assistance of a domestic maid. It is not the fear of living alone that worries me. Rather, it is the unknown that bothers me. I have been psyching myself up for the past one month. I am prepared for it. I am confident that I can manage. Still?

When I sat back and did a mental assessment of my emotions for past week, I could see that those issues were actually blown out of proportion. I attribute that to sleep deprivation. That not only made me sluggish during the day, it was a major contributing factor to the depression I have been experiencing.

Sleep – that is what I need more of. Hopefully when I have fully replaced those lost hours, this depression, which is consuming all my physical and mental vigour, will fade away. In the mean time, the only thing I can do is to live up to my blog tagline – Living one day at a time. That is the only sensible thing to do.