The study also estimates 1,750 deaths from urban and industrial pollution, bringing the total number of air pollution-related deaths that month to 5,310.
Key takeaways
A CREA study reports that wildfire smoke caused 3,560 deaths in Indonesia in September 2026, doubling the previous month's estimate. The pollution also contributed to over 330,000 acute respiratory infection cases across the country.
- Approximately 57.8 million Indonesians inhaled unhealthy to hazardous air during September 2026.
- PM2.5 exposure levels exceeded WHO annual thresholds by up to 24 times in Kalimantan.
- Non-fire pollution sources added 1,750 deaths, bringing the total September death toll to 5,310.
Summarised automatically by AI from the original article by Free Malaysia Today. AI can make mistakes, so check the original for details.
A woman wearing a face mask pushes a cart filled with used plastic bottles along a road amid severe haze caused by forest and land fires in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan in late October. (AFP pic)JAKARTA: Pollution from smoke emitted by months of wildfires across Indonesia caused an estimated 3,560 deaths in the vast Southeast Asian archipelago in September, according to a new study.
The same month, about 57.8 million people in Indonesia were inhaling unhealthy to hazardous air, said the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based think tank.
"Worsening air quality due to forest and land fires in Indonesia pushed the estimated death toll to 3,560 cases in September 2026, a twofold increase from the August estimate," said a CREA statement on Thursday.
