Sandstorm Turns Iraq’s Skies Orange and Sends Thousands to Hospitals

A severe sandstorm has swept across central and southern Iraq over the last two days, turning the sky a strange orange, reducing visibility in some places to less than a half mile and sending several thousand people to emergency rooms with respiratory problems.

Two airports suspended flights because of poor visibility, and the usually crowded highways of Basra, the largest city in the country’s south, were nearly empty as high winds whipped through the palm trees and aboveground electrical lines.

The spokesman for Iraq’s meteorology department, Amir al-Jabri, said that the “heavy waves of dust” had blown across the country after originating in eastern Saudi Arabia, a largely desert area, and picking up additional particles in southwestern Iraq, which is similarly arid.

Although sandstorms have long been a feature of Iraq’s winter and early spring, climate experts say the storms are becoming more frequent and severe as the country and neighboring Syria experience longer and more frequent droughts and as desertification engulfs larger and larger areas of once-fertile land.

The storm was the worst so far in Iraq in 2025, but a similarly serious storm paralyzed Baghdad in December, and there were several severe sandstorms in 2022.

The United Nations counts Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country to some aspects of climate change, including extreme temperatures and the diminishing availability of water.

Although the storm abated on Tuesday and temperatures were a bit lower, southern Iraq was experiencing daily highs of more than 100 degrees before the sandstorm obscured the sun, reducing the temperature.

During the most recent storm, many people donned face masks for protection, especially police officers and emergency workers who were working outside, while others wrapped cloths around their mouths.

The sand and dust were so pervasive that they penetrated almost every house and vehicle, coming through the smallest cracks to coat every surface, making it difficult to work on computers and forcing almost all but emergency workers to stay indoors.

Iraq’s health ministry spokesman, Saif al-Badr, said that emergency rooms across the south had received 3,747 cases of Iraqis suffering respiratory problems as a result of the storm. More than 1,000 of those were recorded in Basra, where the storm was especially severe on Monday, and 451 were in Najaf, a far smaller city, he said.

Also badly affected were residents of Muthanna Province, which shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, he said, adding that most of the thousands who were treated for respiratory problems had been released.

The Basra police department put out a list of storm instructions, including one directed at families: “Since the storm is accompanied by frightening sounds for young children, parents should explain what is happening so that their child can sleep soundly.”