Authorities in Indonesia closed several airports Wednesday due to poor visibility caused by smoke from land-clearing fires, potentially stranding millions of travellers during the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

About 14.5 million people are expected to travel by road, air and sea during an annual exodus from major cities to rural villages to mark the end of the fasting month.

Indonesian youths in Pontianak, Borneo, play near an equator monument. The background is shrouded by haze from land-clearing fires.
(Associated Press)

Authorities closed three regional airports where visibility was only about 100 metres due to fires used to clear land, Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa said Wednesday.

Flight cancellations and delays also were reported at airports on Borneo and Sumatra islands, officials said.

The fires have raged for more than two months, shrouding much of western Indonesia and neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore with smoke.

The army, firefighting airplanes and specially fitted cloud-seeding planes, in which pilots attempt to change the structure of clouds by dispersing chemicals into the air, have failed to curb the thickness of the haze.

In Malaysia, air quality in the capital of Kuala Lumpur plunged to unhealthy levels. The government advised citizens to refrain from outdoor activities.

A meeting of leaders from five Southeast Asian countries last week urged Jakarta to ratify a regional treaty on cross-border haze, and said financial assistance would be withheld until it did.

Annual occurrence

The haze is an annual occurrence caused by illegal slash-and-burn methods used by some farmers and plantation owners to clear land in Indonesia.

Indonesia has said it is cracking down on those responsible for the fires, having arrested 300 people and filed lawsuits against six companies this year.

The smog, which triggered health warnings in Singapore and Malaysia this year, has plagued Southeast Asia since the 1990s.

In 2005, a week-long choking haze over Malaysia almost brought the central part of the country to a standstill and prompted crisis talks with Indonesia.

With files from the Associated Press