HUNDREDS SEEK CARE AS SANDSTORM SWEEPS IRAQ

Hundreds of Iraqis rushed to hospitals with breathing problems Thursday and the Baghdad airport suspended flights for several hours as a thick sandstorm blanketed the country, the fifth to engulf Iraq within a month.

Iraqi state media said most of the patients suffered respiratory issues as clinics across the country’s north and west struggled to keep up with the influx. Authorities urged citizens to stay indoors.

Iraqis awoke to an ochrecolored sky — and a thick blanket of dust covered the roads and buildings with an orange film. Visibility was low and drivers kept car headlights on to see the road.

Flights scheduled to depart overnight and on Thursday morning were postponed, an airport official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Flights resumed by the afternoon, when the dust began to clear.

Iraq is prone to seasonal sandstorms but experts and officials are raising alarm over their frequency in recent years, which they say is exacerbated by record-low rainfall, desertification and climate change.

Issa al-Fayad, an official with the Environment Ministry, said Iraq could face 272 days of sandstorms a year in the coming decades.

At least 700 people sought medical care in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, and dozens more in the provinces of Kirkuk, Salahaddin and Najaf, state TV reported.

At the Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Baghdad, staff stocked up on more medication as weather forecasts predicted the storms would continue throughout May.