Dust Storms, Days w/o Water And A Heat Index High Of 150F - Welcome To Iran, 2023
Taps are running dry across Iran. On Sunday, a record-breaking confluence of heat and humidity translated to an off-the-charts heat index value of more than 150 degrees, at the very limits of human survival, measured at Iran’s Persian Gulf International Airport. Earlier this month, more than 1,000 people sought medical treatment after dust storms ravaged the country’s water-starved southeast.
From Tehran to rural regions, people are posting videos to social media complaining of days on end in the heat without running water, their faucets emitting nothing but murky drops. The water shortages, which experts say are driven in large part by decades of mismanagement, are a long-standing problem. But they have grown more severe as climate change accelerates — and are an increasing driver of discontent, sparking protests and confrontations in recent years.
Over the weekend, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned against demonstrations during a visit to drought-plagued Khuzestan, a recurring center of unrest. Local officials in the northeast province of Golestan pleaded on Monday for water tankers, to avert protests. The government can little afford further threats to its authority in the aftermath of its relentless crackdown on the uprising against clerical rule that grew last year from protests over the death 0f Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, in the custody of the “morality police.”
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Residents of Iran’s sprawling capital faced an uncommon ordeal last month, lining up to fill and lug home jerrycans after water stopped flowing to faucets in parts of the city. Mohsen Ardakani, chief executive of the Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company, a public utility, rejected reports of water shortages. He told state-affiliated media outlets that some areas faced “water fluctuations.” But some residents of Tehran and neighboring Karaj continue to lack running water, according to reports shared online. “What scares me is that if we are running out of water now, then what is going to happen to our children tomorrow?” said a 35-year-old man from Tehran who owns a technology firm. The water crisis has left him wondering whether he wanted to marry and raise children in the country.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/18/iran-drought-water-shortage-heat/
