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Why dust storms still suffocate Iran’s Khuzestan province

The administration of President Hassan Rouhani has declared that it has made great strides in combating dust storms and pollution in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan, but the region appears to still be in the grip of recurring environmental crises.
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to film or take pictures in Tehran.
Motorists travel on a highway in Tehran as the city is covered in dust July 6, 2009. The government closed private educational centres, state offices, industrial units and military bases for two days and raised its pollution alert status due to the dust, which an official from Tehran's environment office attributed the source to dust from dried marshland in Iraq blown towar

A massive influx of dust storms in recent weeks has once again paralyzed Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan. The province has been reeling from dust storms since the early 2000s, a problem which often leads to schools and government offices being closed, power, water and internet outages as well as residents being rushed to hospitals with respiratory complications.

According to a Feb. 18 assessment by the Khuzestan Environmental Protection Office, the concentration of dust particles in the provincial capital of Ahvaz was 1,841 micrograms per cubic meter — 12 times higher than the maximum recommended. In previous years, one city in the province was even reported to have 66 times more dust particles in the air than the maximum. 

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