BAGHDAD— A dust storm that has
swept through much of Iraq has left dozens of people in hospital with
respiratory problems, a health ministry spokesman said Saturday.
اضافة اعلان
The storm erupted in the north of the country on
Thursday, prompting the cancellation of flights serving Erbil, capital of the
autonomous Kurdistan region.
As the storm swept south, it shrouded Baghdad and
cities as far south as Nasiriyah in a ghostly orange.
In the capital, buildings and vehicles were covered
in ochre-colored dust, AFP journalists reported.
The storm has caused “dozens of hospitalizations
across Iraq due to respiratory problems”, health ministry spokesman Saif
Al-Badr told AFP.
The director of Iraq’s meteorological office, Amer
Al-Jabri, said that while dust storms were not uncommon in Iraq, they are
becoming more 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 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.
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