NCRI, 28 October 2013 – Lake Orumieh in north-west Iran is drying completely. Currently 80 percent of the lake which is located in the province of Azerbaijan has been dried and salt winds due to drying of the lake have reached the neighboring provinces.
On October 21, state-run Mehr news agency quoting Abed Fatahi, representative of the city of Orumieh in the regime’s parliament said that due to neglect and ignorance of the authorities 80 percent of Lake Orumieh has been dried and if this issue is not addressed, the country will face the crisis of salt storms in the future.
Reports indicate occurrence of salty hurricanes around Lake Orumieh and cities like Tabriz, capital of the East Azerbaijan province. With the drying up of the Lake and destruction of agriculture and climate change in western Iran, an environmental disaster is emerging.
A day earlier, state-run Fars news agency released photos of salty storms in the southern parts of East Azerbaijan province and reported: “Due to the drying of the Lake and increasing width of its shores, unfortunately in the midst of dust storms significant amount of salt is observed. If this situation continues, the salt will cover agricultural lands making them uncultivable.”
This is while $1M budget was allocated for this crisis but no action has been taken and it is not clear what happened to the money.
