Smoke from Indonesian forest fires hung over the west side of the Malaysian Peninsula yesterday, but the government is still keeping its air quality readings under wraps to avoid upsetting the tourist trade.
The green hills surrounding Kuala Lumpur were reduced to murky grey shadows even from the vantage point of the Petronas Towers, the world's tallest buildings, as a haze hung over the city.
Smoke appeared to thicken over northern Penang state, which is about 200km across the Strait of Malacca from Indonesia's Sumatra island, the site of the fires.
"It has been very bad with visibility particularly reduced," said Meena Raman, spokesman for NGO Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM).
"You don't smell it, but you definitely feel an irritation in the throat," she said from the group's Penang office.
On Monday, Malaysia, in its first official acknowledgement of the problem, banned open burning and declared air pollution was at unhealthy levels at monitoring stations near Kuala Lumpur and in Sarawak state on Borneo Island.
Environment department officials would not comment yesterday.
The government banned release of specific pollution readings after the region-wide haze crisis in 1997, saying negative media reports hurt the tourism industry.
Raman said detailed pollution readings would help the public to decide if they should go outside or take precautions.
The haze is nowhere near as bad as four years ago when people wore masks in the street for protection.
Southern Thailand was also hit by haze that reduced visibility in some areas to 500m, officials said on Monday.
Fires on Sumatra last year -- many started illegally to clear land for farming -- resulted in a haze over parts of Malaysia, Singapore and southern Thailand.
The 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is scheduled to sign an accord on fighting the problem at November's ASEAN summit in Brunei.
Residents in five Thai provinces bordering Malaysia were warned yesterday to stay indoors or wear face masks, as a choking haze caused by Indonesian forest fires hung over the country's south.
The Environmental Health Centre in Songkhla province said the warning was particularly aimed at people who were already suffering from conditions like asthma.
"The situation is not yet at a dangerous stage, but we have advised people not to directly inhale the haze and to stay indoors, or if they must go outdoors, to wear masks," said the center's director Ongart Chanacharnmongkol.
Ongart said the haze from Indonesia's Sumatra island had covered Thailand's five southernmost provinces -- Satun, Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat -- since Saturday.
"So far the level of dust is moderate; it has not yet reached a critical level."
The Public Health Ministry is also planning to hand out 20,000 face masks through provincial offices for residents who need to work or do errands outdoors.
The pollution crisis has reportedly forced many fishermen to stay in port in Satun province, where visibility is down to less than 100m on land, and under 1km at sea.
The haze crisis that enveloped Southeast Asia in 1997 and 1998 caused an estimated US$9.3 billion in economic losses.
Many of the fires were deliberately set by planters clearing land for cultivation.
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