(Baghdad) Airports and public administrations closed, exams suspended in schools and universities: Iraqis found the familiar orange halo on Monday caused by a new sandstorm, which forced 2,000 people to go to hospitals for respiratory problems .
Posted at 6:55 a.m.
The last such episode resulted in a death on May 5 from respiratory ailments, which also prompted more than 5,000 people to go to hospitals for treatment.
Early Monday, city rooftops, cars parked in the streets and even furniture in homes were covered in a layer of very fine yellow sand, AFP correspondents noted.
At least 2,000 people suffering from breathing difficulties “of varying degrees of intensity have been admitted to hospitals”, Health Ministry spokesman Seif al-Badr said in a statement.
In the emergency room at Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Baghdad, around 20 people, mostly elderly men, are lying on beds, masks covering their tired lower faces, to help them breathe on ventilators.
Since dawn, the hospital has admitted some 75 patients who have come to receive doses of oxygen, one of the emergency room managers, Talib AbdelMoneim Nejm, told AFP. “There are patients of advanced age who suffer from chronic diseases, cardiac or respiratory problems. »
Lying on his side, Hadi Saada, 70, breathes and speaks with great difficulty. With each storm the same scenario repeats itself and this is the third time that his son Mohamed accompanies his cardiac father to the hospital.
“The dust suffocates him”
Khaled Jassem is on his second visit. “We have been here since eight in the morning, my father is 70 years old and suffers from heart failure, diabetes and hypertension, the dust is suffocating him”, confides the son Walid.
Baghdad airport announced the resumption of air traffic in the early afternoon, after suspending flights due to “visibility of 300 meters”, according to the official INA news agency.
The airport of Najaf, a holy Shiite city in the south, and that of Suleimaniya, in autonomous Kurdistan in the north, also closed for the day, according to the same source.
At least seven of the country’s 18 provinces have announced the closure of public administrations, with the exception of health departments, including the capital Baghdad.
All schools in the country will be closed and exams postponed until Tuesday, the Ministry of Education announced. University exams have also been postponed.
The storm will gradually dissipate from Monday evening, according to the meteorological services.
Since mid-April, Iraq has experienced no less than eight storms in just a few weeks. The authorities present Iraq as one of the five countries in the world most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and desertification.
For the next two decades, Iraq is expected to experience “272 dust days” per year. In 2050 the threshold of 300 days will be reached, according to an official from the Ministry of the Environment.
Among the measures recommended to combat this phenomenon, the authorities cite “the creation of forests that act as windbreaks”.