After fire, famine feared in Indonesian province

“From the data that we have received, it showed that 60,000-80,000 (East) Kalimantan residents risk starvation. Several other ministries involved will take action in anticipation of this,” Sudarsono was quoted as saying by the daily. He said he would visit the province along with the Minister of Social Affairs Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana to carry out a closer study.

Meanwhile an environmental official told AFP that long hoped for downpours had started to extinguish the fires.

“The forest fires in East Kalimantan have begun to subside with the heavy rainthat we have had continually for over a week,” Murdiansyah of the East Kalimantan Environmental Impact Agency told AFP.

Earlier reports quoted officials as saying that only prolonged rain could put out the fires and that manual firefighing efforts were insufficient.

“It has been said several times before that what we needed was rain and we have been having plenty of rain,” said Murdiansyah in the East Kalimantan provincial capital of Samarinda.

He said that according to the latest data compiled on Thursday, seven fires had burned 518,000 hectares (1.279 million acres) of forest and ground since the beginning of the year at an estimated loss of at least 10.4 billion dollars.

“There should be some more figures coming in from some more posts inland but it is the latest data we have,” he added. Murdiansyah said that satellite data showed that there was little parched land left in East Kalimantan after the rains.

“The dryness intensity in East Kalimantan is 540. Basically what that means isthat the earth’s heat level in the area is very low,” he said. “Of course this means very good news because then the forest is no longer very prone to more fire.” Murdiansyah said people were facing “food crisis” in East Kalimantan because the fire had destroyed their fields and forest resources.

“Sources like rattan and damar (tree sap) which people used to sell are mostly gone, so the people have lost their source of income. As for the food, most of the animals they hunt are also gone,” he said.

Abdon Nababa, an environmentalist, was also quoted by the daily as saying that many people were also suffering because a near year-long drought has resulted in massive crop failures.