Embassies and multinational corporations are sending staff home on emergency leave. Everyone's clothes reek of smoke. To the dismay of businesspeople and travelers, area airports have been closed and airlines frequently have been forced to delay or cancel flights throughout the region due to low visibility. The smoke has been linked to a tragic plane crash in Sumatra, in which 234 people lost their lives, and to a collision of two ships in the Straits of Malacca that killed 29 crewmen. Driving a car or motorcycle, already hazardous in a region where the rules of the road are taken as friendly but unsolicited advice, can be pure folly when the haze is thick.
People bear the daily unpleasantness with stoicism, even humor.
The local joke is that there's no need to smoke kretek , the fragrant Indonesian cigarettes flavored with cloves, because breathing in the air is the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes or more a day. It would be funny if it wasn't true. It may very well become a major issue in the future as awareness, population pressure and increasingly intolerable pollution combine to push the environment toward the top of the political agenda in Southeast Asia. The lowland tropical rainforests in Sumatra and Kalimantan are among the most biologically rich ecosystems on Earth. According to the Indonesian Association of Medicine Plants Exporters, more than 100 species of medicinal plants, some of which grow only in the wild, have been lost in the fires.