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National Geographic : 1969 May
Contents
to $3.00 a thousand gallons-compared with about 44 cents a thousand in my home town of Philadelphia. Kuwait added a water strike to its string of oil strikes just a few years ago. Now the manufactured water supply is being augmented by millions of gallons daily from an acci dentally discovered underground lake at Raudhatain, near the Kuwait-Iraq border. I had an inkling of what it was like to get water in the old days when I chatted with Bahar Tirathdas Gidwani, an In dian bank officer, after one of Kuwait's seasonal sandstorms. "If a storm like that came up suddenly," said Mr. Gid wani, "the dhows from the Shatt al Arab couldn't move out, and sometimes, during a 'red' sandstorm blowing in from Syria and Iraq, no water might arrive for two or three days." Several times thereafter I watched shawls of the gritty par ticles whirling in from the gulf, becoming so impenetrable that I could not even see the park across the street. Nowadays the water ships are gone, their usefulness past. Kuwait itself almost floats on a sea of oil, and oil has built the most modern city in Arabia. The field at Burgan, about 25 miles south of the capital, has been called the most pro ductive oil field in the world (pages 636-7 and 665). All Ancient foe: the weather KUWAIT, tucked in a blazing corner of the Arabian desert, endures summer temperatures that reach 120° F. Kuwait City, among the world's hottest capitals, claims to be the most air-conditioned. Windstorms frequently sandblast it with choking grit. Below, a combination sand- and rainstorm batters a lonely automobile. Rain fall, a meager one to six inches a year, once called for rejoicing. Now with distilled sea water available, downpours are a nuisance. Hold ing up their dishdashahs, tradi tional flowing robes, pedestrians (right) aid a cab driver searching for an ignition key lost during a deluge. A floating carpet has run aground on the sidewalk. 640
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