A LIBYAN DUST STORM

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 94, 30 July 1943, Page 6

A LIBYAN DUST STORM

Dust storms have been mentioned so often during this war in the great Libyan Desert that a little more about them may be worth while. They are usually bad enough, but this year they are. worse than the oldest Bedouins can recall. In one case, the storm lasted two hours, and during that time a ton of sand per acre was deposited each hour. The dust is so fine that it penetrates everywhere,, and a closed room will yield fourteen pounds of fine dust after a day's blow. In a heavy wind, the air is black or red. and visibility is nil. The individual who ventures out. in such a storm is lost in two minutes as completely as in a complete black-out. Two causes have contributed to the greater preI valance of the storms this year, the great drought, which has killed everything green save where water has been provided; and the war with its ceaseless digging of hundreds of miles of desert camps; and the pulverising of the sand still fur'tlier by the ponderous mechanised vehicles which the..'armies use so largely.