The United Nations warned on Wednesday that the number of sand and dust storms is growing “dramatically,” with Central Asia being the most affected.
Toxic sand storms have ravaged portions of Central Asia and North Africa, posing a threat to human life, according to the UN.
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is holding a five-day meeting in the medieval city of Samarkand, little under a week before the COP28 climate change summit begins in Dubai.
“The sight of rolling dark clouds of sand and dust engulfing everything in their path and turning day into night is one of nature’s most intimidating spectacles,” UNCCD Secretary-General Ibrahim Thiaw said in a statement.
“It is an expensive phenomenon that causes havoc everywhere, Central Asia all the way to Sub-Saharan Africa.”
According to the agency, the storms have far-reaching consequences, and in certain regions of the world, “desert dust has more than doubled in the last century.”
“An estimated two billon tons of sand and dust now enters the atmosphere every year, an amount equal in weight to 360 Great Pyramids of Giza,” according to the report.
The storms, according to experts, can have “life-threatening” consequences.
“Fine dust particles are carried to high tropospheric levels (up to a few kilometres high) where winds can transport them over long distances,” according to the press release.
Last month, AFP visited with people of neighboring Tajikistan who had respiratory and other health issues caused by the storms, according to medics.
Previously uncommon, such storms now begin in In many places of Central Asia, spring lasts into fall.
Storms frequently form in the dried-up portions of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, but they also form in the Kazakh steppes and neighboring Afghanistan.
