One More Affliction for Baghdad:Day of Blinding Dust, Grit, Breathlessness

[DeepModem Mom]

New York Times:
One More Affliction for Baghdad: A Day of Blinding Dust and Grit and Breathlessness
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: August 9, 2005


Max Becherer/Polaris, for NYT
The sandstorm blocked out the sun for most of the day and closed airports across the country.


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 8 - At dawn the atmosphere glowed orange, like the embers of a fire. Objects 25 yards away disappeared, as if a curtain had been drawn in front of them. Baghdad residents began waking up with the sour taste of grit in their mouths and a film of dust on their furniture and clothing, and by 8 a.m. Nireen Abdul Khalek began to feel that she could not breathe.

Five hours later, Ms. Khalek, 24, stood amid the pandemonium in the emergency room at Yarmouk Hospital, one of Baghdad's largest, where at least 500 patients had been admitted with respiratory ailments brought on by a blinding dust storm that many residents said was the most vicious they had seen in years. "This time is the worst ever," whimpered Ms. Khalek, as she sporadically administered drugs to herself with a syringe that overwhelmed doctors had taped to her wrist.

Ebaa Mahmood Sabri, a doctor working in the emergency room at the hospital, said nearly all the cases involved people with asthma, bronchitis or chest infections who were having difficulty breathing in the dust. He said he believed that two or three patients were dead on arrival, but in the chaos of the emergency room the number could not be immediately confirmed. "This day is disaster," Dr. Sabri said in English.

The storm shut down the Baghdad airport, closed shops across the city and forced the postponement of meetings between political leaders who are trying to resolve differences over Iraq's new constitution. Meteorologists said the storm in Baghdad was part of a raking plume that blew dust 500 miles from the Syrian and Jordanian borders in the northwest all the way to Kuwait in the southeast before dumping the material into the Persian Gulf....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/international/middleeast/09sandstorm.html

[acmavm]

1. There is no part of these poor people's lives that the American

government, aka the bush** administration, has not screwed up.

[Greybnk48]

2. Was talking to someone in Baghdad last night

on the internet (my daughter's beau) and he said he even had to sleep with a t-shirt wrapped around his face in the barracks because it was so bad. (BTW, he's one of the good guys, knows what's what. Joined up BB, before Bush).

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Sounds awful -- thanks for the report, Greybnk....

and I hope your daughter's beau will be safely home soon.