Iraq sandstorm grounds flights, sends 1,000 to hospitals

Iraq closed public buildings and temporarily closed airports on Monday as another sandstorm hit the country, the ninth since mid-April.

More than 1,000 people were hospitalized across the country with respiratory problems, according to Seif al-Badr, spokesman for the health ministry.

Flights were also grounded for the second time this month in neighboring Kuwait, as the region grappled with the increasingly common weather phenomenon.

Later the same day, the second heavy sandstorm in less than a week descended on Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, obscuring iconic buildings like the Kingdom Centre in a grey haze.

The Iraqi capital Baghdad was enveloped in a giant dust cloud that left usually traffic-choked streets largely deserted and bathed in an eery orange light, AFP correspondents said.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi ordered all work to cease in state-run institutions, except for health and security services, citing “poor climatic conditions and the arrival of violent sandstorms”.

Air traffic was suspended at the international airports in Baghdad, Arbil and Najaf, before flights resumed in the capital and Arbil.

Iraq is ranked as one of the world’s five most vulnerable nations to climate change and desertification.

The environment ministry has warned that over the next two decades Iraq could endure an average of 272 days of sandstorms per year, rising to above 300 by 2050.

Iraq’s previous two sandstorms sent nearly 10,000 people to hospital with respiratory problems and killed one person.

The Middle East has always been battered by sandstorms, but they have become more frequent and intense in recent years.

The trend is associated with rising temperatures and water scarcity, the overuse and damming of rivers as well as overgrazing and deforestation.

Oil-rich Iraq is known in Arabic as the land of the two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, where the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia flourished.

Iraq’s environment ministry has said the increased sandstorms could be countered with more vegetation cover including trees that act as windbreaks.

A major dust storm last week swept across the region, also reaching Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

In Dubai, the world’s tallest building was engulfed in a cloud of dust, while more than 1,200 people were hospitalized in Riyadh alone.

Saudi authorities warned Monday of persistent heavy sandstorm conditions in Riyadh and surrounding areas until after nightfall.

Experts predict that the problem will worsen as climate change alters regional weather patterns, dries out and degrades soils, and accelerates desertification across much of the Middle East.