Thailand's extreme air pollution: 'I feel sorry for my daughter'

[Social Media]

For the past few weeks, Thommamoon Khowasat has painstakingly explained to his four year-old daughter that the yellow cloud they see outside their window - which has tickled her imagination - is actually a danger to her health.

It's a scare that has gripped northern Thailand where millions of people are currently finding it harder to breathe.

Widespread farm burning and forest fires have created a smog that's even thicker than usual, which is choking communities and exposing them to respiratory disease.

In the tourist-favoured Chiang Rai province, and even the capital Bangkok, people have been on edge checking the air quality levels every day.

"I feel very sorry for my daughter," said Thommamoon, who has not seen haze this thick in the 20 years he has lived in Chiang Rai.

"As a child she doesn't know. She thinks that it's natural fog. But the truth is a poisonous mist."