Jean-Marc Ram­per­sad

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

Res­i­dents of Trinidad and To­ba­go are be­ing urged to take im­me­di­ate pre­cau­tions as a sig­nif­i­cant in­flux of Sa­ha­ran dust moves across the re­gion, caus­ing vis­i­bly hazy skies and a no­tice­able de­cline in air qual­i­ty.

Yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) con­firmed el­e­vat­ed par­tic­u­late lev­els. Se­nior En­vi­ron­men­tal Of­fi­cer in EMA’s Air Unit, Treina Di­noo Ram­lochan, not­ed that par­tic­u­late mat­ter da­ta is tem­porar­i­ly un­avail­able on the EMA web­site and so­cial me­dia plat­forms due to crit­i­cal tech­ni­cal up­grades and on­go­ing main­te­nance of mon­i­tor­ing equip­ment abroad. How­ev­er, oth­er cred­i­ble lo­cal mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems have con­firmed the sig­nif­i­cant dust ac­tiv­i­ty.

The Min­istry of Health has re­leased pub­lic health guid­ance de­tail­ing the like­ly im­pacts of the high dust lev­els. Com­mon symp­toms in­clude a run­ny nose, sneez­ing, dry cough­ing, sore throat, and itchy or wa­tery eyes. To re­duce ex­po­sure, the min­istry rec­om­mends wear­ing a face mask and notes that symp­toms should nat­u­ral­ly sub­side as dust lev­els de­crease.

Health of­fi­cials and the EMA are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, in­clud­ing old­er adults, young chil­dren, preg­nant women, and in­di­vid­u­als with al­ler­gies. Peo­ple with pre-ex­ist­ing heart or lung con­di­tions, such as asth­ma, are al­so at high­er risk from the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing air qual­i­ty.

Au­thor­i­ties ad­vise these groups to stay in­doors when pos­si­ble, lim­it out­door ex­po­sure, keep win­dows closed, and avoid pro­longed or stren­u­ous out­door ac­tiv­i­ties. It is al­so es­sen­tial for af­fect­ed in­di­vid­u­als to fol­low pre­scribed med­ica­tions and have a res­cue in­haler read­i­ly avail­able.

Med­ical at­ten­tion should be sought im­me­di­ate­ly if in­di­vid­u­als ex­pe­ri­ence se­vere short­ness of breath, chest dis­com­fort, per­sis­tent fever last­ing more than two to three days, or a sig­nif­i­cant wors­en­ing of pre-ex­ist­ing con­di­tions.

The EMA is work­ing ur­gent­ly to re­store full mon­i­tor­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties at all its sta­tions and will is­sue up­dates once sys­tems are ful­ly op­er­a­tional. In the mean­time, the pub­lic is en­cour­aged to re­main vig­i­lant and mon­i­tor of­fi­cial chan­nels for air qual­i­ty ad­vi­sories.

Sa­ha­ran dust is ex­pect­ed to per­sist through­out most of this week, with a de­crease in con­cen­tra­tion an­tic­i­pat­ed on Fri­day as some mois­ture moves in­to the area.