Sandstorm Sends 246 to Sistan Hospital

A provincial official in southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province said a sweeping and strong sandstorm has sent 246 people to hospital in the arid part of the country since Saturday. “The storm caused breathing, heart and eye problems for 246 people,” Abdol Rahman Shahnavazi, the managing director of Sistan and Baluchestan Crisis Management Office, told IRNA on Sunday. He said “46 citizens were hospitalized while others were outpatients.”  The long drought and sandstorms in the region have sent a large number of people in the province to hospitals with varying health problems, mostly respiratory and eye diseases. Head of Sistan and Baluchestan Meteorology Office Ali Mola Shahi said the storm will become more powerful in the coming days and disrupt flights to and from the provincial cities of Zabul and Zahedan. Sistan and Baluchestan was home to the Hamoun Wetlands which has now completely dried up, turning the region into dustbowl. In the place of what was once a thriving oasis, powerful sandstorms have buried villages and ruined livelihoods. The construction of a dam in neighboring Afghanistan has drastically reduced water resources for the wetlands in Iran, paving the way for more destructive storms.