A dust storm blanketed Iraq on Tuesday, sending people to the hospital with breathing difficulties and leading airports to suspend flights.
It followed a similar storm that blew over the country late last week which left dozens hospitalised with respiratory problems.
The latest weather event cast an orange hue over the capital Baghdad, where it severely restricted visibility and coated buildings and cars in the dust.
Journalists said that pedestrians wore disposable masks to avoid inhaling the particles.
“People have been hospitalised with breathing difficulties, but most cases are minor,” health ministry spokesman, Saif al-Badr, told newsmen.
“Dozens of flights were suspended in Baghdad and the Shiite holy city of Najaf during the morning, before flights resumed in the afternoon when conditions improved” airport sources also said.
While sand and dust storms were not uncommon during the Iraqi spring, they were expected to become even more frequent “due to drought, desertification and declining rainfall,” said, the director of Iraq’s meteorological office, Amer al-Jabri.
Iraq has been said to be particularly vulnerable to climate change, with record low rainfall and high temperatures in recent years.
Experts said that these factors threatened social and economic disaster in the war-scarred country.
In November, the World Bank warned that Iraq could suffer a 20 percent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change.
AFP
