Sandstorm In Middle East May Be Largest In Modern History (PHOTO FROM SPACE)

In what is said to be the worst in recent memory, a massive week-long sandstorm descended on Iraq last week, sending hundreds of people to the hospital and forcing Vice President Joe Biden to cancel his plan to visit Kurdistan. From Reuters:

Many Baghdad shops stayed shut on Sunday, while police wearing masks directed thin streams of traffic through eerily misty streets. Hospital emergency rooms were packed with people complaining about breathing problems, officials said.

"We are on alert. This is the worst dust storm we have ever had in Iraq," said Doctor Jasib Lateef, operations manager at the Iraqi Health Ministry. "A large number of people are turning up at emergency rooms at hospitals, challenging our resources."

A NASA satellite picked up images of the dust storm from space that reveal its sheer scale, covering a vast swathe of northwestern Iraq. According to NASA's Earth Observatory website:

Dust plumes hovered over most of Iraq on July 3, 2009, as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead. This true-color image shows thick dust between Syria and the Iraq-Iran border. Over northwestern Iraq, the dust takes on a strangely textured appearance: a combination of small bumps and curving waves. Air currents likely sculpted the upper layer of the massive dust cloud.

Check out the image:

The image includes international borders, with Syria to the west, Iran to the east, and Saudi Arabia to the southwest, to give a sense of the storm's location and size.

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Comments

[ZimboDude]

"Worst in History" LMAO. How do you know that? You headline should say "worst in recorded history"

[jmnewton]

I'm writing from the Middle East (United Arab Emirates) and this sandstorm is so bad it has even spread here: I cannot see the outline of the downtown buildings, which are close by my office and usually clearly visible. The storm must be covering a huge area.

[rf dude]

Gawd - it's gonna be bad for our guys when this lifts...

Hope I'm wrong about this!
--

[Marnie1]

I just can't wait to see how the Religious evangelicals justify blaiming this on gays.

[JohnFromCensornati]

The End is near.

[Bitsko]

The worst in "recent memory" and "modern history"? Ever been to Australia, mate? Happens all the time there.

[Big0725]

Did it mention anything about Australia? No, it didn't. Just another Commonwealther that thinks the most important or the biggest and best always happens in an ex-British colony.

[GrahamInCanada]

And here I thought the largest in "recent memory" and "modern history", in any memory and in all of recorded history, was May 9 to May 11, 1934, covering 400,000 square kilometers of land and more at sea and displacing 650 million tons of soil...

Canada and the United States suffered this storm, the very largest in a series of such devestating storms from 1930 to 1940, and it changed us deeply. We called the storms, collectively, the dust bowl, and we called the entire era the dirty thirties because of the storms.

[heyletsevolve]

Knock it off with your history. This is good media.

[CessnaDriver]

I just saw Bound for Glory over the weekend. Sandstorms have to be incredibly miserable.

[GoDogGo]

Middle-East? That's Burning Man!!!

[DaneAZ]

Hahahaha!
Good one!

[Rendon76]

Its Dune and the sand worms!

[BluestateGuyInTX]

We had a mild one a year or two ago in Dallas. They are kind of spooky. It gives the world a kind of sepia tone. Very artistic. ;-)

[Big0725]

I was in one in Saudi in 1993. It blew across the Red Sea from Egypt and lasted to days. If you didn't wear facial covering, you were hacking up red phlegm. Not a pleasant couple of days.

[Artos]

Eventually the whole planet will look like a desert much like Arakis in Dune. You can see our end when you look at Planets like Mars. The only difference is that Man has helped advance that end by many centuries because of our demented behavior and lack of reverence for our world. Instead of treating it like something we honor because it gave us life, we do our best to conquer it and destroy it. A testament to our egos, which will end with our extinction.

[popman]

We better sacrifice another fetus to Mother Gia to appease her for our sins

[plaidsportcoat]

It's to hide wmd

[plaidsportcoat]

It was caused by al quaeda

[plaidsportcoat]

it was caused by aliens

[Rumplestiltskin]

Wasn't Joe Biden seen teasing butterflies in the vicinity of the starting point of these winds?

[LeeCalif]

Thanks to the US military for adding depleted uranium to make this a deadly mix for decades to come.