BAGHDAD: Heavy dust storms have blanketed much of the region killing eight people, reducing visibility and halting flights as well as hitting ports.
In Baghdad and southern Iraqi cities, a red haze of dust and sand reduced visibility to just a few hundred feet, forcing authorities to close some state schools and offices and halted flights at Baghdad International Airport.
Seven people died after a heavy dust storm hit Syria’s eastern Deir Al Zor province, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war
monitor reported.
Kuwait Ports Authority suspended all maritime operations at its three ports due to bad weather, the state news agency Kuna reported. Flights were also temporarily suspended at Kuwait International Airport.
Some parts of Saudi Arabia have also been hit by sandstorm.
A heavy sandstorm in Iraq, the latest of what Iraqis say is an unprecedented number to hit the country in recent weeks, closed some state schools and offices and halted flights at Baghdad International Airport yesterday.
Iraq is the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to the climate crisis, according to the United Nations.
Drought and extreme temperatures are drying up farmland and making large parts of Iraq barely habitable during the summer months. The country posted record temperatures of at least 52 degrees Celsius in recent years.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) war monitor reported about 200 people have also suffered from respiratory problems, and hospitals in eastern Syria received dozens of suffocation cases.
Syria’s state-run Sana news agency also reported the strong storm caused power outages in the Hasakah province.
The Arab Regional Weather Center said the dust storm is most powerful in Deir Al Zor, with speeds as high as 90kmph.
“With the Middle East and North Africa region in the midst of a state of extraordinary drought and aridity, dust storm events will likely continue to propagate in greater numbers during the summer season,” Mohammed Mahmoud, senior fellow and director of the Climate and Water Programme at the Middle East Institute, wrote in a briefing in early May.
“This is because with reduced soil moisture and dry surface conditions, it becomes easier for dust and sand particles to be picked up in larger quantities by regional winds, thus providing the perfect breeding ground for dust storms,” he concluded.