Iraq sandstorm grounds flights, sends 1,000 to hospitals
AFP — 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 hospitalised across the nation with respiratory problems, health ministry spokesman Seif al-Badr told AFP.
Flights were also grounded in neighbouring Kuwait for a second time this month, as the region grapples with the increasingly frequent 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.
Vehicles drive down roads in Iraq’s capital Baghdad as thick dust blankets the city.
According to authorities, Iraq closed airports and public buildings as another sandstorm the ninth since mid-April hit the country.
South of the capital, near the Shiite shrine city of Najaf, shepherds found themselves shrouded in sheets of ochre-coloured dust.
‘Violent sandstorms’
Iraqi 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.
Later on Monday evening, Arbil’s airport closed again “due to thick dust”, according to the state news agency INA.
