Students in Padang are being forced to wear face masks to school due to the poor air quality in the Indonesian city.

Footage from September 18 shows the young pupils taking part in a lesson whilst wearing masks.

According to the principle of SDN 08 Alang Lawas Padang, Jon Herison: "We see that with the weather, there are impacts such as fever, coughs, all kinds of things, but we don't know the exact details, but roughly speaking, there are impacts.

"We always keep our children's break times fixed, so no one is outside. There are hours, for example, half past 10 and then 15 minutes after we come back in."

IQAir states that on September 18 the city's PM2.5 concentration is 5.4 times the World Health Organisation's guidelines.

Elementary school students in Padang, West Sumatra have started wearing masks to school to avoid exposure to acute respiratory diseases.

This was caused by poor air quality in the city of Padang due to smoke haze caused by forest and land fires from neighboring provinces.

Principal of SDN 08 Alang Lawas Padang, Jon Herison: "We see that with the weather, there are impacts such as fever, coughs, all kinds of things, but we don't know the exact details, but roughly speaking, there are impacts.
"We always keep our children's break times fixed, so no one is outside. There are hours, for example half past ten and then fifteen minutes after we come back in."