Tehran, Iran, May 31
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
The environment protection organization of Tehran Province has announced that it is unable to tackle a sweeping dust storm.
The department's director Hadi Heidarzadeh said the organization is unable to do anything about a dust storm that has been over Tehran for a few days, Fars news agency reported May 31.
He said that to prevent the dust storms, desert cleaning is needed which falls within the duties of the Agriculture Ministry.
It has been three days since a new wave of dust storm swept Tehran. The dust comes from Iraq.
A while ago Head of Iran's Environment Protection Organization Masoumeh Ebtekar said that people have to put up with the dust and that no official could pledge to eradicate it.
She added that the administration does not intend to conceal the realities regarding dust particles challenge that needs a long term planning to overcome.
Earlier Iranian MP Moayed Hosseini, member of the Parliament's Environment Commission, asked Ebtekar to attend in the parliament and answer questions about the organization's performance against the dust.
In recent years, dust storms in the western part of Iran have grown in frequency and density. It has on occasions caused people serious respiratory problems, sometimes even forcing them to seek hospital care.
The storms are believed to be the result of dust being carried by atmospheric circulation from lands to the west of Iran. Some have blamed the desertification of lagoons in Iraq and the strong winds from the deserts of Saudi Arabia for the blanket of dust reaching Iranian cities.
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