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Iran’s capital was engulfed in a cloud of toxic smoke that unleashed black rainfall dozens of miles away on Sunday after overnight Israeli strikes on several fuel depots caused fires to burn for hours.
Images from Tehran, a city of nearly 10 million people, showed thick black smoke from the fires hanging over it, while residents reported difficulty breathing and oil-tainted rainfall staining everything around them.
“The rain is black, I can’t believe it, I’m seeing black rain,” Kianoosh, 44, a Tehran resident and engineer, told TIME. “It’s even in Tajrish, which is miles and miles away from the oil tanks.”
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Parviz, 49, a university professor in a city about 70 miles north of Tehran, said he didn’t recognize his car when he went outside: “My white car was almost black,” he said, recounting his difficulty in finding it. “I just washed it yesterday.“
Iran’s Red Crescent Society warned residents of Tehran and the surrounding region that the rainfall after the strikes could be “highly dangerous and acidic,” and could cause “chemical burns of the skin and serious damage to the lungs.”
Leila, a 27-year-old teacher in Tehran, said the air was “unbreathable.”
“Something like a black monster has swallowed the sky over Tehran,” she told TIME. “It’s as if all the cars and the street pavement have been coated in black paint.”
“Today I was in the car for just 15 minutes, breathing this air. I don’t even know what it is, and now I have a headache. The skin on my face, especially my lips, is sore and raw. It burns and feels like diluted tear gas is in the air. It irritates my eyes, and I keep needing to clear my throat,” she added.
Ahmad, a 63-year-old Tehran resident, said he had to leave the city due to the air pollution.
Iranian state media reported that the Aghdasieh oil warehouse in northeast Tehran, the Shahran oil depot north…
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