Air pollution has reached “alarming” levels in the Iranian capital, Tehran, leading authorities to close schools and universities and ban truck travel in the region in the latest environmental crisis to strike the Middle East nation.

The Air Quality Index in Tehran and surrounding cities on November 29 climbed to between 170 and 200 — considered to be “unhealthy” for all age groups, Iranian media reported.

According to experts, air-quality levels of 0-50 are considered good, while those at 151-200 are rated as “unhealthy.” Above 200 is considered “very unhealthy.”

Mohammad Jafar Qaempanah, a deputy to President Masud Pezeshkian, said that “air pollution will kill if it becomes any more than this.”

The Tehran Air Quality Control authority advised residents to “avoid unnecessary outdoor travel.”

“Elderly people and children, along with cardiovascular and respiratory patients, should remain in their homes as much as possible,” it added.

Restrictions were also put on car travel, while government offices, banks, and other businesses operated with reduced staffs and ordered some employees to work remotely.

The emergency is the latest environmental crisisto hit Iran, which is also suffering from severe economic difficulties amid financial sanctions imposed over its nuclear program — which the West alleges is designed to build a bomb but which Tehran insists is for civilian purposes.

Decades of mismanagement compounded by prolonged drought pushed Iran to the brink of what experts call water bankruptcy. With reservoirs running on empty and rainfall at a record low, authorities began rationing water supplies in Tehran, a city of some 10 million people.

Pezeshkian warned the water crisis could lead to the evacuation of parts of Tehran and suggested the possibility of moving the capital to another city.

Kaveh Madani, director of the Canada-based UN University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, said recent warnings by authorities have not gone far enough.

“The level of their warnings is too low compared to the reality on the ground,” Madani, who previously served as deputy head of Iran’s Department of Environment, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

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Iran Weather Swings From Drought To Floods After Cloud-Seeding

by RFE/RL

No media source currently available

On November 29, the IRNA news agency reported that the massive Karkheh Dam and Power Plant was taken out of production due to decreased water in the dam’s lake. Karkheh is the largest earth dam in the Middle East and one of the largest in the world, built on the Karkheh River.

Efforts to relieve the water shortages led to another crisis in the country.

Authorities on November 15 resorted to cloud-seeding — spraying chemicals into the air to induce rainfall — in the Lake Urmia basin in northwestern Iran. However, that program led to heavy rain and severe flooding across six western provinces.

“In addition to the heavy cost of cloud-seeding, the amount of rainfall it produces is nowhere near what is needed to solve our water crisis,” Sahar Tajbakhsh, chief of Iran’s Meteorological Organization, told state TV.

With reporting by dpa and Reuters