More than a thousand cases of suffocation were recorded in Iraq today, Thursday, due to a dust storm that has hit areas in the center and south of the country since Wednesday night, according to the official news agency, and it is the seventh storm in about a month.
Dust covered 6 Iraqi governorates since Wednesday night, including the capital, Baghdad, and the governorates of Anbar, Kirkuk, Najaf, Karbala and Salah al-Din, in the center and south, whose residents woke up to thick layers of orange dust covering their homes.
Anbar Governorate, located in western Iraq on the border with Syria, recorded about 700 cases of suffocation, and the Iraqi News Agency quoted the director of health information for the province, Anas Qais.
As for Najaf (south of Baghdad), it recorded "more than 100 cases of suffocation as a result of the dust storm," as announced by the governorate's health department, as well as 332 cases in Salah al-Din, located in central Iraq, and 100 cases in Diwaniyah in the south.
The health authorities in Anbar and Kirkuk provinces in the north called on residents not to leave their homes.
Cars drive on a road in Baghdad amid a sandstorm (Reuters)
It is expected that the dust storm will gradually recede during the day, according to the director of media for the Iraqi Meteorological Authority, Amer Al-Jabri. In an interview with the Iraqi News Agency, it is likely that dust storms will continue this month.
In the past two months, dust storms have recurred in an unprecedented way in Iraq, and experts attribute them to climate change, lack of rain and desertification.
The latest of which led to the closure of Baghdad and Najaf international airports due to lack of visibility.
Iraq is one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change and desertification in the world, in particular, due to the increasing drought with high temperatures that exceed 50 degrees Celsius for days in the summer.
Last November, the World Bank warned of a 20% decrease in Iraq's water resources by 2050 due to climate change.
The Director-General of the Technical Department of the Iraqi Ministry of Environment also warned in an interview with the Iraqi News Agency of the increase in sandstorms, especially after the number of dusty days rose to "272 days per year for a period of two decades."
And it is likely that "it will reach 300 dusty days per year in 2050."
Increasing vegetation cover and planting forests with dense trees that serve as windbreaks are the most important solutions needed to reduce the rate of sandstorms, according to the ministry.