{"id":94143,"date":"2026-10-19T06:44:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T22:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=94143"},"modified":"2026-10-19T06:44:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T22:44:01","slug":"singapore-haze-improves-but-remains-unhealthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=94143","title":{"rendered":"Singapore haze improves but remains unhealthy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"text-primary article-summary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE &#8211; The haze situation improved overnight on Oct 19, with the 24-hour PSI readings falling across the board, although in four of the five regions, the pollution levels were still classified as unhealthy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">At 6am, the Pollutant Standards Index <!-- -->(PSI) <!-- -->stood at 92 in the north, 104 in the south, 107 in the east, 139 in the west and 117 in the central region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">This is a marked improvement from the day before, when the 6am readings reached significantly higher levels: north (129), south (172), east (181), west (227) and central (185).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">It also hit a new season high of 230 in the west at 10am<!-- -->, placing it in the \u201cvery unhealthy\u201d band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Air quality is considered moderate when the PSI \u2013 a 24-hour rolling average of six key air pollutants \u2013 is in the range of 51 to 100, and unhealthy when it is in the range of 101 to 200. Beyond 200, it enters the very unhealthy band.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"responsive-iframe-base st_visuals st_visuals-embed\" title=\"st_visuals embed\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/multimedia\/graphics\/2026\/08\/singapore-haze-widget\/index.html\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer;falseclipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share;\" loading=\"eager\" data-testid=\"responsiveIframe\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Meanwhile, one-hour <!-- -->PM2.5 readings \u2013 which measured in micrograms per cubic metre and are a gauge of the current air quality \u2013 <!-- -->hovered between the normal and elevated bands on Oct 19.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">At 6am, the readings were: north (40), south (60), east (68), west (75) and central (75).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">PM2.5 scores from 0 to 55 represent normal values, those between 56 and 150 indicate an elevated concentration of fine particles, while readings between 151 and 250 are considered high and scores above 251 are classified as very high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The highest PM2.5 reading this haze season was recorded at 3pm on Oct 14 in the western part of the island at 288.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">On Oct 18, the National Environment Agency (NEA) had forecast for Oct 19 that the PSI would lie between 101 and 190 \u2013 in the unhealthy band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Rain is forecast over Singapore and the surrounding region on Oct 19, while winds are expected to blow from the south-south-east or south, which may limit the transport of smoke haze from Kalimantan to Singapore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">However, some smoke haze from Sumatra may drift towards Singapore, NEA added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The haze situation on Oct 19 marks a relative easing compared to the situation last week, when PSI readings remained in the unhealthy or very unhealthy bands on most days. On Oct 16, three in five regions recorded very unhealthy PSI levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Singapore is currently experiencing its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/environment\/spore-is-experiencing-its-12th-consecutive-day-of-unhealthy-air-the-longest-since-2015-haze-crisis?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"inline font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"typography-test-id\">15th day of unhealthy air<\/span><\/a> \u2013 the longest stretch since the 2015 haze crisis, during which bad air persisted for 14 days from Sept 23 to Oct 7.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/haze-in-singapore-air-quality-improves-but-most-regions-remain-in-unhealthy-band\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE &#8211; The haze situation improved overnight on Oct 19, with the 24-hour PSI readings falling across the board, although in four of the five&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/94144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}