What is a Sandstorm:
Sandstorms (also known as Dust storms) is when high winds
touches and picks up loose sand or soil and moves it throughout the air causing
poor visibility and sometime even blackout conditions.1 Within such storms the sand can cause large
amounts of damage including covering agriculture creating famine, death to
livestock and people if exposed in a storm and damage to property such as transportation
vehicles.
Masks are important if caught outside during a sandstorm to help prevent breathing in sand particles.
Sandstorms usually take place in dry hot places and are more
likely to occur during the summer. This
is because there is a high level of heating within the air over barren landscapes
such as deserts that cause the lower atmosphere to become unstable. With the atmosphere being unstable causes a
mixture of strong winds in the middle troposphere to move downward to the
surface. In a result produces strong
winds that lower to the surface.2 In deserts in dry hot climates like in
Afghanistan creates a higher possibility for sandstorms to take place.
Sandstorms Affecting Afghanistan People:
Sandstorms are a major threat to the people of Afghanistan
with the possibility of destroying crops, contaminating water supplies and the
potential of destroying homes. In 2003,
more than 12,000 people 57 villages which were seriously affected by sandstorms
which were recorded by the United Nations.3
In one of the more sever sandstorms “up to 20 villages had to be
evacuated because they were covered in sand which was banked up against the
walls of homes and compounds.”4 Sandstorms such as these would not only create
displaced families but they will also have to rely on a limited amount of water
and food supply’s that were not affected.
4.http://www.irinnews.org/Report/20553/AFGHANISTAN-Sandstorms-affect-over-ten-thousand-people
Work Cited:
1.http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_causes_sandstorms.htm
2.http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_causes_sandstorms.htm
3.http://www.irinnews.org/Report/20553/AFGHANISTAN-Sandstorms-affect-over-ten-thousand-people4.http://www.irinnews.org/Report/20553/AFGHANISTAN-Sandstorms-affect-over-ten-thousand-people
Image Source:
1.https://plus.google.com/photos/110851263651500394524/albums/5838707893829761569/5867997542086214962
2.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/06/al-qaida-afghanistan-peter-bergen-review
3.http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_causes_sandstorms.htm
4.http://op-for.com/2009/07/the_wolfpack_3d_lar_in_iraq.html
6.https://plus.google.com/photos/110851263651500394524/albums/5838707893829761569/5868038530524804354
