Iraq yet again hit by dust storm

An aerial picture shows a view of the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah in the southern Dhi Qar province during a sandstorm, on May 1, 2022. (AFP)

A aerial picture taken by drone shows the southern Iraqi city of Najaf during a dust storm on May 1, 2022. (AFP)

An Iraqi cleaner works to clean the street during a severe dust storm in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on May 1, 2022. (AFP)

• Dozens were hospitalized with respiratory problems in the center and the west of the country
• Flights were grounded due to poor visibility at airports serving Baghdad and Najaf

BAGHDAD: Iraq on Sunday was yet again covered in a thick sheet of orange as it suffered the latest in a series of dust storms that have become increasingly common.
Dozens were hospitalized with respiratory problems in the center and the west of the country.
A thick layer of orange dust settled across streets and vehicles, seeping into people’s homes in the capital Baghdad.
Flights were grounded due to poor visibility at airports serving Baghdad and the Shiite holy city of Najaf, with the phenomenon expected to continue into Monday, according to the weather service.
“Flights have been interrupted at the airports of Baghdad and Najaf due to the dust storm,” the spokesman for the civil aviation authority, Jihad Al-Diwan, told AFP.
Visibility was cited at less than 500 meters (550 yards), with flights expected to resume once weather improves.
Hospitals in Najaf received 63 people suffering from respiratory problems as a result of the storm, a health official said, adding that the majority had left after receiving appropriate treatment.
Another 30 hospitalizations were reported in the mostly-desert province of Anbar in the west of the country.
Iraq was hammered by a series of such storms in April, grounding flights in Baghdad, Najaf and Irbil and leaving dozens hospitalized.
Amer Al-Jabri, of Iraq’s meteorological office, previously told AFP that the weather phenomenon is expected to become increasingly frequent “due to drought, desertification and declining rainfall.”
Iraq is particularly vulnerable to climate change, having already witnessed record low rainfall and high temperatures in recent years.
Experts have said these factors threaten to bring 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.
In early April, environment ministry official Issa Al-Fayad had warned that Iraq could face “272 days of dust” a year in coming decades, according to the state news agency INA.
The ministry said the weather phenomenon could be addressed by “increasing vegetation cover and creating forests that act as windbreaks.”