Some days we have sandstorms and then some days we have SANDSTORMS! This was one such day… and my first experience of a menacing and beautiful desert storm.
Last year, in April there was a short flash of a storm that lasted a whole of 40 minutes… and a baby storm compared to this.
There I was…in the kitchen, buttering my toast and nursing my evening cup of coffee… and out the kitchen window I see this unusual cloud. It seemed out of place… so close to the ground. By the time I realized it wasn’t a mere rain cloud but rolling barrels of dust…it had formed a menacing band across the horizon.
Even as I ran and got the cam… it had grown ever more menacing and was angrily rolling forward. I wondered about the people on the roads, they wouldn’t even see it approaching…
Boy…would it be a surprise to them! And a lot of people got caught in the dust especially since it was a Friday (the weekend in Kuwait) and everyone would have been out having fun.
Within a span of 15 minutes the barreling clouds of dust had wrapped my building and everything was pitch dark…
As I write this, it is almost 5 hours since the storm started, I can hear the terrible wind banging against the enormous glass walls of my apartment… and fine dust has seeped in through whatever little gaps it could find through the doors. Everything smells of dust and outside the visibility is almost nothing.
It is scary but awesome at the same time… Nature’s wild, beautiful scare tactics !
Here are some pics I managed to take from my bedroom window…
© Surya Murali
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