More than 100,000 people died prematurely because of smoke and haze created by vast forest fires, mainly in Indonesia, last year, said the New York Times, pointing to research by two U.S. universities. The blazes destroyed more than 10,000 square miles of forests and began with fires intended “to clear land for palm oil plantations and other uses,” said the newspaper.
The El Niño weather pattern created a long dry season, which allowed the fires to spread. “Multinational palm oil companies, pulp and paper companies, the smaller plantations that sell to them, traditional farmers and even day laborers were accused of starting the fires,” said the Times.
Scientists from Harvard and Columbia universities said the deaths occurred because of exposure to fine particulates thrown into the air by the fires in forests and wooded peatlands. The fires covered large parts of Southeast Asia in a smoky haze for weeks and sickened hundreds of thousands of people. The Indonesian government estimated the fires cause as much as $30 billion in economic losses.