SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A child died and at least 267 people were treated in hospitals in the Kurdistan Region on Monday for respiratory ailments due to a sandstorm, according to Esta Media Network reporters.
People in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq awoke once again to a thick cloud of dust blanketing the sky on Monday.
Esta Media Network reporter cited a local source as saying that a three-year-old child had died in Allawa Mahmoud village in Kirkuk due to respiratory problems.
As many as 137 other people visited hospitals in Kirkuk to receive treatment, the reporter added.
In Sulaimani, 70 people were admitted to hospitals for respiratory problems.
Hospitals in Kalar, Kifri, Khanaqin, Ranya, Qaladize, Chwarqurna and Hajiawa received 60 people who had breathing problems, according to Esta’s reporters.
Earlier, airports serving the provinces of Baghdad, Sulaimani and Najaf suspended flights due to poor visibility.
Visibility was cited at less than 300 meters (550 yards), with flights expected to resume once weather improves, according to Iraqi media.
Authorities in Baghdad and Kirkuk also announced Monday a holiday in the provinces because of the dust storm.
Iraq was hammered by a series of such storms in April, grounding flights and leaving dozens hospitalised with respiratory problems.
Amer al-Jabri, of Iraq’s meteorological office, told AFP last month that the weather phenomenon was expected to become increasingly common “due to drought, desertification and declining rainfall”.
Iraq is particularly vulnerable to climate change, having already witnessed record low rainfall and high temperatures in recent years.
Experts have said these factors threaten to bring social and economic disaster in the war-scarred country, according to AFP.
In November, the World Bank warned that Iraq could suffer a 20-percent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change.
In early April, environment ministry official Issa al-Fayad had warned that Iraq could face “272 days of dust” a year in coming decades, according to the state news agency INA, AFP reported.
The ministry said the weather phenomenon could be confronted by “increasing vegetation cover and creating forests that act as windbreaks”.
