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 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. Search Search. Home United States U. Africa 54 - November 11, VOA Africa Listen live. In Iraq, the climate is desert in the center and the south, with mild winters and extremely hot summers, it's semi-desert in the north, with relatively cold winters, while in the northern mountains, the climate is cold and rainy or snowy in winter and hot and sunny in summer, but with cooler nights due to the high altitude.
Index Mountains - Sulaymaniyah Syrian desert - Rutbah North - Mosul The Center-south - Baghdad Best Time What to pack Mountains In the north-eastern part of Iraq zone 1 on the map , occupied by the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan Zagros and Taurus , winters are cold and rainy, while summers are hot and dry, even scorching up to quite high altitudes.
Annual precipitation ranges between and 1, millimeters 27 and 40 inches , and occurs between October and April. Her sister Elaf, who lives elsewhere in the city, had no state-provided electricity for days on end in late June. Iraq has not enacted the kind of heat protection laws implemented in other Gulf countries such as Qatar to protect workers, such as banning outdoor work during the peak heat season and making annual health checks mandatory.
Seif Talib, a year-old filmmaker who lives in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, tries to cope with the heat by scheduling the shooting of outdoor scenes in the spring and saving indoor scenes and editing for the summer. Most Iraqi homes need electricity to pump water into their bathrooms for a shower. But even when the water does arrive, it is often boiling hot. Talib said that at his home the power has been off more than 12 hours each day since mid-June.
Of course for Iraqis, the weather is not their only problem. The battle with ISIS rages less than 50 miles away and there continue to be regular suicide bombings in the city.
And while those who have houses are able to enjoy some air conditioning throughout the day, Iraq has more than , refugees living in unfinished buildings, shelters and tents, according to the International Organization of Migration. Many of these people, who have fled ISIS violence or other conflicts such as war-ravaged Syria, are now effectively living on the streets of Baghdad. But for people like Ali Saleh, a year-old a government employee who works at the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, all he can think about right now is the heat.
The country's creaking power infrastructure is suffering after years of under-investment and mismanagement. Like Ali, Saleh said that because of power shortages he was only able to turn on his home's air conditioning for six-to-eight hours per day.
After that he has been forced to resort to generators, which were only able to power a "few electricity devices, like fans and air coolers, not ACs.
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