Hi beautiful people,
Previous week was quite a rollercoaster of emotions and events. It’s funny how unexpected situations you never even think about can immediately change the path of your existence.
The air in Singapore and Malaysia is unhealthy due to fires in Indonesia that started few weeks ago. The wind is continuously spreading dangerous haze and in some parts of Malaysia it was really bad. Fires in Indonesia weren’t an accident. It is an annual thing referred to as Indonesian forest fire season where farmland is dried out and burned to prepare for the following year’s crop – paper and palm oil plantations.
What makes haze dangerous is something called atmospheric particulate matter (PM). The amount of those small particles, produced as a byproduct of forest fires, volcanic eruptions, motor vehicles, is used as to measure the air quality. The most dangerous are PM2.5 - particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers because they can easily penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the circulatory system. They can trigger or worsen diseases such as asthma, heart attack, bronchitis and other respiratory problems. More information here.
It scares me is how casual people are about the haze situation. You really can see the haze, you can check the air quality index and see you high it is, yet almost no one wears protective masks.
Please, take care of your health.
You can buy N95 masks that filter 95% of PM2.5 particles. One piece costs about 2 SGD and can save you from exposing yourself to unhealthy levels of air pollutants. I wear it outdoors while transiting from home to work.
When I found out about fires in Indonesia and dangerous haze in Singapore and Malaysia, it took me 30 minutes to buy a ticket to Philippines for a plane that leaves in 2 hours! It was very spontaneous and totally unplanned trip.
You will hear everything about it in my next post!
Stay tuned and have a nice day!
Ivna
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