REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PEKANBARU -- Haze from land and forest fires in the province of Riau has been worsening in the past two days, according to the local Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) station.

"Right now the haze has increasingly become thicker, with visibility in several areas including Pekanbaru city and Rengat in Indragiri Hulu district going down to only 100 meters," the head of the BMKG station in Pekanbaru, Sugarin said on Sunday.

The result of monitoring conducted by the BMKG station at 07.00 a.m. showed that thick smoke also blanketed Pelalawan area with visibility falling to around 200 meters. However, visibility was recorded at 800 meters in Dumai city.

The haze shrouding Pekanbaru has been worsening in the past 48 hours. On Saturday, visibility in the capital of Riau province ranged from 400 meters to 1,000 meters.

The BMKG said 674 hotspots were detected in six Sumatran provinces on Sunday. Of the total, 607 were found in South Sumatra, 37 in Jambi, 14 in Lampung, 11 in Bangka Belitung, 1 in Riau Islands and 4 in Riau.

The number of hotspots increased sharply from 54 the day before.

Head of the Riau Provincial Disaster Mitigation Agency Edwar Sanger said the thick smoke blanketing Riau came from land and forest fires in neighboring South Sumatra and Jambi provinces.

The haze left thousands of travelers stranded in Pekanbaru on Sunday after tens of flights were canceled as thick smoke blanketed Sultan Syarif Kasim II Airport.

The visibility at the airport was only from 50 meters to 300 meters making it impossible for an aircraft to take off and land at the airport.

"Until mid day today 36 flights schedule were already canceled on bad weather," Air Port Duty Manager of the airport Hasnan said.

Hasnan said normally everyday the airport recorded around 8,000 travelers arriving at and departing from the airport.

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