The strong sandstorm has swallowed in the last two days in central and southern Iraq, turning the sky strange orange, reducing visibility in some places in less than half a mile and sending several thousand people to ambulance with respiratory problems.
Two airports suspended flights due to poor visibility, and usually full of Basra highways, the largest city in the south of the country, were almost empty while strong winds pierced palm trees and above ground electrical lines.
The spokesman for the Iraqi Department of Meteorology, Amir Al-Jabri, said that “heavy dust waves” were blowing all over the country after originating from Eastern Saudi Arabia, mostly desert area, and picked up additional particles in southwestern Iraq, which is similar.
Although sandy storms are a long feature of winter and early spring of Iraq, climatic experts say that storms are becoming more and more serious as the Earth and neighboring Syria experience longer and more often and as AS and as AS Dezertification affects larger and larger areas sometimes fertile land.
The storm was the worst in Iraq 2025 so far, but a similar serious storm paralyzed Baghdad in December, and there were several heavy sand storms of 2022.
United Nations Iraq consider The fifth most vulnerable country to some aspects of climate change, including extreme temperatures and reduced water availability.
Although the storm stopped on Tuesday and the temperatures were a little lower, the southern Iraq experienced daily heights greater than 100 degrees before the sand storm overshadowed the sun, reducing the temperature.
During the latest storms, many people applied protection masks, especially police officers and emergency workers who worked outside, while others wrapped the cloths around their mouths.
The sand and dust were so penetrating that they penetrated almost every house and vehicle, passing through the least cracks to coat each surface, which made it difficult to work on computers and force almost all workers, except in an emergency to stay indoors.
The spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Saif al-Badr, said the emergency services in the south received 3,747 cases of Iraqi who suffered respiratory problems as a result of the Storm. More than 1,000 of them were recorded in Basra, where the Storm was particularly strong on Monday, and 451 was in the najuf, far smaller city, he said.
The residents of the Muthanna Province, which shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, are also poorly affected, he said, adding that most of the thousands were published by respiratory problems.
The Basra Police Directorate has published a list of storm instructions, including the one -directed family: “Since the storm is accompanied by scary sounds for young children, parents should explain what is happening so their child can sleep well.”