SE Asia ministers to meet on haze, prayers for rain

PELALAWAN, Indonesia, Oct 10 (Reuters) Southeast Asian ministers will meet soon to discuss ways to help Indonesia put out forest fires blanketing the region in smog, officials said today, as people in fire-hit areas were left praying for rain.

Environment ministers from the ten-member Association of South East Asian Nations could gather in Singapore as early as this week to try to help Indonesia put out the fires and prevent them recurring in future, a Malaysian government official said.

Forest fires are burning mainly in Indonesia's part of Borneo island and on Sumatra island, also in Indonesia. Most are deliberately lit. Each dry season, forest is illegally torched to clear land for agriculture, blanketing Southeast Asia in smog.

But farmers are also using traditional slash-and-burn methods to clear or rejuvenate land.

Indonesian Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban admitted in a statement yesterday the government was struggling to douse the fires and an environment ministry official said rain was now key.

''Indeed, the government is hoping for the rain while trying to conduct cloud seeding or water bombing. Rain is needed for the larger scale,'' said Hermono Sigit, adding sporadic showers had occurred in some parts of Sumatra.

Cloud-seeding could work in some areas but in other areas conditions were not right, officials said, while water bombing with helicopters is only able to dump limited volumes of water.

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