Schools in Muar will temporarily close as the haze enveloping the district has reached a hazardous level

Hazardous haze, DPM advises Muar schools to temporarily close

KUALA LUMPUR: Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today advised schools in Muar to temporarily close as the haze enveloping the district has reached a hazardous level.

Muhyiddin who is also Education Minister, said this measure was necessary to prevent the haze from adversely affecting the students' health.

"When the haze has reached a hazardous level, the schools' administration or principals can close the schools temporarily.

"If the API (Air Pollutant Index) reading has reached 400, it's considered dangerous, and the schools must close until the situation improves," he said after chairing a special meeting with the National Security Council on the haze situation in Muar, at this office in Parliament building, here, Wednesday.

The haze problem in the Muar district over the last few days has worsened, with the API reading at 432 as at 11am today, which is categorised as hazardous.

However, API readings at the monitoring stations in other areas so far showed readings that indicated the air quality to be healthy or moderately healthy.

Muhyiddin said although the API reading had dropped to below 300, schools in the Muar district were still advised not to carry out any co-curricular activity outside for the time being.

Muhyiddin said the National Security Council would also activate the Central National Disaster Relief Management Committee to monitor and control the haze situation, besides activating the state and district-level committees.

"The first step will be to inform the people of Muar to take precautionary measures to protect their health such as wearing masks."

He said Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Douglas Uggah had also been in contact with his counterpart in Indonesia, seeking the latter's cooperation in addressing the haze problem.

Muhyiddin said Malaysia was also prepared to provide assistance including logistics to tackle the problem.

"According to the reports we've received, the haze originates from there (Indonesia). We are not simply making accusation but we want action before the haze spreads and becomes even more detrimental to Malaysia," he said

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