BAGHDAD —
Iraq closed public buildings and temporarily shut airports Monday as another
sandstorm — the ninth since mid-April — hit the country. More than 1,000 people
were hospitalized across the nation with respiratory problems, health ministry
spokesman Seif Al-Badr told AFP.
اضافة اعلان
Flights were also
grounded in neighboring Kuwait for a second time this month, as the region
grapples with the increasingly frequent weather phenomenon. The Iraqi capital
Baghdad was enveloped in a giant dust cloud that left usually traffic-choked
streets largely deserted and bathed in eerie 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, Erbil, and Najaf, before flights resumed at Baghdad and
Erbil.
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.
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