"There are about 10 million people living in the densely urban areas of Tehran and about 15 million total counting those residing in its immediate surroundings and suburbs.

It takes just one drop of oil to contaminate 200 liters/50 gallons of water. There are videos of soot and crude literally raining from the sky - houses and streets coated in oil, trees spontaneously catching fire.

Cancer rates will skyrocket, including birth defects from the massive volumes of volatile hydrocarbons released in the atmosphere. Every aquifer and underground water supply will be poisoned for the foreseeable future. Fauna - from household pets to birds and insects - will be eradicated, plants will wither and die and every crop growing there, if any survive, will end up contaminated by the soil. Tehran has, for all intents and purposes, been set on an irreversible course toward becoming a wasteland.

US and Israel essentially dropped the equivalent of a dirty bomb on Iran - just without the explosion or immediate effects. The fact that the news is reporting on this without commenting on its unthinkable consequences for the region is simply surreal.

This is arguably the biggest war crime committed by a sovereign nation since World War 2. If Western countries still had an ounce of moral backbone, they would be turning the US and Israel into pariah states at best or labeling them rogue nations after today's act."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] seas_surround@hexbear.net 26 points 22 hours ago

The article comrade BodyBySisyphus posted links to a humanitarian report on the ecological fallout resulting from the burning of the Qayyarah oil field in 2016 in Iraq. I'm not sure if the scale matches 1:1 but it's analogous enough to shed some light on the health concerns

Damage to oil refineries, wellheads, pipelines and other oil infrastructure has created localised hotspots of pollution. People are likely to have faced acute and chronic exposures to a range of toxic compounds, heavy metals and particulate matter, which may have serious implications for their health. Ground and surface waters have been contaminated with oil products from soot and oil spills, affecting the supply of drinking and agricultural water. Cultivated and grazing lands have also been contaminated, with serious implications for agriculture and livelihoods. Assessing, remediating and monitoring the health, environmental and economic consequences of these attacks will place a huge technical and financial burden on the Iraqi state.