Indonesia’s oxygen bus offers breather to residents choking on toxic haze

Nearly 500 facilities where people can access free oxygen and treatment for haze-related ailments have been set up across the country.

A bus fitted out with oxygen tanks is providing a sanctuary in a city on Indonesia’s Borneo island, where people are choking from forest-fire-induced haze and the blazes show no sign of letting up.

Indonesia regularly battles seasonal forest fires, predominantly on Sumatra and Borneo islands, but this year the infernos are the most intense in more than a decade.

An intense El Nino weather phenomenon has driven up temperatures, leaving the country’s vast forests and peatlands more vulnerable to fires that have turned skies orange across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.