NASIRIYAH, Iraq, June 16, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Hospital ventilators shut down,
football matches with obligatory water breaks and food spoiling in fridges
without power: Iraq’s notorious summer has arrived.
As one of the hottest countries in the world with around half of its
terrain covered in desert, Iraq is no stranger to stiflingly hot summers.
But even by its own standards, this June has been a sizzler — averaging a
daily 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit), compared to around 40 in previous
years.
Across the country, Iraqis have sprung into usual routines to cope:
wrapping outside door handles in tape to stop them getting too hot in the
sun, keeping a change of clothes in the car, or stepping fully-clothed into
curbside showers to cool off.
Working hours have changed, with businesses opening and closing later to
take advantage of the cooler evenings.
Baghdad residents shutter themselves away during the searing afternoons,
then re-emerge around midnight or later for a belated dinner in the
manageable 35-degree heat.
Inside, they crank up air conditioning units, putting extra strain on the
country’s dilapidated power grid and causing the much-despised outages that
sparked massive protests last year.
In Dhi Qar, a province south of Baghdad, the cuts have hit public
hospitals, said provincial health chief Abdel Hassan al-Jaberi.
“People are hesitating to come to the hospital because the electricity is
cutting 17 times per day,” he told AFP.
– Buying less –
Private clinics purchase their own generators to keep machines running
during the outages, but these remain unaffordable for many of Iraq’s 40
million citizens.
Some people are buying fewer groceries, fearing they’ll spoil if it’s too
hot and the power goes out.
“Everyone is buying less,” said Abu Haydar, a shopkeeper in Nasiriyah, Dhi
Qar’s largest city.
Like most residents, he gets up to 12 hours of state-provided electricity
per day and supplements them by paying for a generator so his wares don’t go
bad.
Further south in the oil-rich province of Basra, the heat has reached life-
threatening levels. Oil companies have hoisted purple flags above their
facilities to signal the highest possible danger levels for those working on
the fields given the heat wave.
Even Iraq’s football league has been forced to make adjustments for its
national championship, which falls during the summer months.
There are dozens of outdoor arenas, but only five of them have the
floodlights necessary for nighttime games and athletes are forced to play
during the day.
That puts them at risk of dehydration, heatstroke and other conditions,
says sports nutritionist and football coach Lotfi Moussawi.
“The players suffer from hypoglycemia, breathing problems, and extreme
fatigue that could even reach the point of fainting,” Moussawi told AFP.
To mitigate the risks, referees pause matches every 15 minutes to allow
players a sip of water and a few moments in the shade.
– Ministry in the crosshairs –
“Players then undergo medical and physical examinations” to make sure the
heat has not left any adverse after-effects, says Khayam al-Khazarji.
Khazarji is the communications head for Al-Kahraba, one of Iraq’s several
dozen football clubs, many of which are linked to government bodies.
“Al-Kahraba,” ironically, means “electricity” — a club named after its
patron, Iraq’s strapped power ministry.
The ministry is in the public’s crosshairs every summer due to outages,
which occur year-round but are more common and damaging during the hot
months.
The United States has granted Iraq another 90-day waiver to continue with
vital energy imports from neighbouring Iran despite re-imposed sanctions, a
government source said Saturday.
The extension came after “long discussions” with Washington ahead of a
looming deadline on a previous extension granted in December, the official,
close to the negotiations, told AFP.
Iraq pipes in up to 28 million cubic metres of Iranian gas a day for power
generation and also directly imports up to 1,300 megawatts of Iranian
electricity.
As the focal point for public anger, however, electricity ministers in Iraq
almost never finish their full four-year term.
Last year, the minister of electricity was ousted after a wave of protests
over power and water that rocked the country’s south.
His successor, Luay al-Khateeb, has sought to ramp up the grid before the
summer to avoid the same fate.
That involves building new power plants, but also repairing decrepit
transmission lines that, according to the International Energy Agency, lose
up to 40 percent of generated electricity before they reach homes.
Khateeb had promised 20 hours of state-provided power daily this summer and
has already faced public criticism over failing to do so, with hundreds of
protesters hitting the streets in Basra and Diwaniyah.
With temperatures set to rise further in the weeks ahead, government
officials are bracing themselves.
“The heat is reaching levels we haven’t registered since 2011,” says Amer
al-Jaberi of the state meteorological office.
“It’s going to be a hot summer,” says Jaberi.