‘Rainmakers’ and transboundary smog – Thailand’s struggling battle against air pollution
This month, Bangkok was the fourth most polluted city in the world – seeing over
350 schools closed to protect the health of children.
Asia correspondent @CordeliaSkyNews [http://twitter.com/@CordeliaSkyNews]
Saturday 8 February 2025 07:33, UK
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For weeks now, most of the friends and families I know have had a cough of some
kind. The pollution in the dry season in Thailand has long been a problem.
But recently, it’s reached dangerous and deeply worrying levels.
Bangkok was the fourth most polluted city in the world this month. Across 31
districts 352 schools were also closed because of pollution
[https://news.sky.com/topic/air-pollution-7588].
For weeks, I’ve had to rush my children into school with masks on, as the cheery
teachers apologetically declare: “Pollution day so straight into class please.”
I like to go running with my son before school. But these days we’ve had to
check the air quality index before we venture out.
Unfortunately, there have been plenty of mornings when the red bar appears, the
screen reads, “very unhealthy” and we have to stay in.
It’s not a ritual I ever imagined having to go through with my kids in an era
when governments know full well the dangers of pollutants and have the
technology and know-how to reduce it.
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Pollution is linked to the deaths of 100 children under five daily in South East
Asia and the Pacific, according to a report this week by UNICEF.
This when clean air should be a universal right.
I’ve started to really worry about what living in Bangkok and many other parts
of Thailand [https://news.sky.com/topic/thailand-6183] is doing to little lungs
long term.
You can feel the smog in the back of your throat and sometimes, you can see the
haze. But other days it’s hidden – a silent killer.
‘Rainmaker’
The Thai government hopes a plane that’s become known as the “rainmaker” might
help.
In Hua Hin, about a three hour drive south of Bangkok, we get on board for a
flight back to the capital. Two big plastic containers are being filled with
1,000 litres of icy water through a pump.
Today they’re dropping it over 16km of land shrouded in pollution. They do it
twice a day across the country.
It’s an unconventional method and critics say so far unproven, but the hope is
that it will cool down the warm air below and help disperse the trapped polluted
particles cloaking the city.
The big worry right now is the PM 2.5 levels – cancer-causing particles that get
into the lungs and bloodstream. Recently, they were eight times what the World
Health Organization recommends.
Pollution ‘getting worse every year’
Pilot Aim Suracharttumrongrat tells me: “It’s a very huge scale problem. Our
mission here is one of helping. But it’s not solving the problem.”
He gestures out the window to show how hard it is to see. “I’m very surprised,”
he says of how bad the pollution currently is. “It’s higher every year.”
A couple of hours drive away in Ratchaburi province, you can see a big part of
the problem – burnt fields of rice, sugar cane and corn – the product of
slash-and-burn farming.
It’s a cheap and efficient way for poor farmers to clear the land, and they’re
encouraged by big businesses driving up demand.
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International smog and toxic traffic
It’s not the only problem.
Toxic traffic is playing its part too. The government has been trying to counter
that by offering free public transport.
Winds from China and India have also contributed to the recent haze – earlier
and more intense than previous years.
The government has rules in place against burning crops. But punishments aren’t
always enforced and if Thailand and other countries are serious about improving
the situation, holding big agricultural companies to account will be key.
China and Singapore are two nations that have turned things around.
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Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra recently admitted despite adopting a wide
range of measures, air quality is still bad.
She said she had personally raised the issue of transboundary smog with ASEAN
foreign ministers.
But Thailand will arguably have to go much further than that if it’s to turn
things around – in policy and practice.
