The skies in Beijing turned an apocalyptic orange when the city was hit in March 2021 by its worst sand and dust storm in a decade.
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| Athens has been engulfed in dust in one of the worst storms in six years. Photo: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images via telegraph.co.uk |
Visibility fell to under 300 metres and toxic particulate levels were 160 times higher than the safe level set by the World Health Organization. People were advised to stay indoors, and flights and public transport systems were halted.
“It looks like the end of the world. In this kind of weather, I feel that I really don’t want to be outside,” Beijing resident Flora Zou said at the time.
By 2020, the number of storms reported in America’s Great Plains had doubled over the previous two decades. In the same year, a storm in the Sahara – nicknamed Godzilla – reached record “hazardous” levels. And in 2022, Iraq was hit by ten storms in just two months; a decade ago, it recorded no more than a handful per year.
Last year, the UN Sand and Dust Storms Coalition, which works with governments to improve resilience to such events, said the storms were having “substantial transboundary impacts, affecting various aspects of the environment, climate, health, agriculture, livelihoods and the socioeconomic well-being of individuals.”
Dust storms are becoming “increasingly frequent and severe” across large parts of the globe, according to the UN.
In the Middle East alone, about $13 billion a year is lost in damages to buildings, powerlines and agriculture, according to the World Bank. In comparison, tornadoes caused $1.1 billion in property damage throughout the US in 2023.
telegraph.co.uk
