English: Dust poured over the Arabian Sea in early April 2017. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured a true-color image of the scene on April 7.

Streams of dust and sand blew southward from Iran and Pakistan across the blue waters towards Oman. A wider river of tan dust blows from Pakistan and India, east of the green valley of the Indus River, and over the Arabian Sea.

Dust storms are the most common natural hazard in this region and can cause substantial damage. On April 9, 2017, the e-publication Financial Tribune reported that dust storms that raged during the past week have crippled the Iranian city of Rigan, inflicting at least $800,000 in damage. They also disrupted school and traffic.

Most of the damage was suffered in the agricultural sector, with dust coating orchards and palm groves, as well as hitting wheat and barley farms hard. Rigan sits in southern Iran, but is not seen in the image, lying to the northwest of the upper left corner.