BAGHDAD —
Iraq was hit Wednesday by its
third heavy dust storm in two weeks, temporarily grounding flights at Baghdad
and Najaf airports, as the weather phenomenon grows increasingly frequent.
اضافة اعلان
The air in
Baghdad was thick with a heavy sheet of
grey and orange dust, while the state news agency INA cited the meteorological
office as saying the latest storm was expected to lift on Thursday.
Flights were suspended at Baghdad International
Airport due to poor visibility.
The airport serving the Shiite holy city of Najaf to
the south also released a statement announcing flights were grounded.
Two dust storms struck the country earlier in April,
leaving dozens hospitalized with respiratory problems and temporarily grounding
flights at a number of airports.
“The dust is affecting the whole country but
particularly central and southern regions,” Amer Al-Jabri, an official at
Iraq’s meteorological office, told AFP.
“Iraq is facing climatic upheaval and is suffering
from a lack of rain, desertification and the absence of green belts” around cities,
he said.
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.
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
confronted by “increasing vegetation cover and creating forests that act as
windbreaks”.
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