Heavy sandstorm hits Baghdad

A heavy sandstorm has blanketed Iraq’s capital, closing Baghdad airport and sending dozens of people to the hospital with respiratory problems.

Visibility is only a few metres and most of the few people on the streets are wearing surgical masks.

Doctors at the city’s hospitals said today that people were coming in complaining about shortness of breath and other problems.

Sandstorms are a regular occurrence in Baghdad, which is shielded from the desert by a thin strip of arable land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.