Since the beginning of April 2022, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East have been hit by a series of severe dust storms.
Since the beginning of April 2022, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East have been hit by a series of severe dust storms. Two major storms in the past two weeks have sent thousands of people to the hospital, as poor air quality from airborne dust can aggravate asthma and other respiratory diseases.
The skies above Baghdad, Najaf, Sulaimaniyah, and other cities turned orange as visibility dropped to a few hundred meters. Several airports were closed during the dust events, and schools were closed nationwide. Government offices were shuttered in seven of the Iraq’s 18 provinces, and several governors declared states of emergency.
The natural-color images on this page were acquired with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. The image above was captured by Aqua MODIS on May 16, 2022; the image below comes from Terra MODIS on May 5.
Read more at: NASA Earth Observatory
Photo Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
