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An orange glow blanketed Sydney today as gale-force winds whipped up one of the city’s largest dust storms on record, shrouding the Opera House with a choking powder, snarling traffic and forcing airlines to divert flights.

“It’s like a nuclear winter morning,” Peter Wilson, 53, a visitor from Queensland state, said at Circular Quay in central Sydney as fog horns echoed across the harbor. “It is so eerie.”


The Harbor Bridge was hidden by a thick haze as the early morning sun struggled to pierce the blanket of dust blown in from the dry interior of the continent. Train commuters, some wearing masks or clutching handkerchiefs to avoid breathing in the dust, stood on the platform snapping photographs of the spectacle on their mobile phones

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning for wind gusts as fast as 90 kilometers (56 miles) an hour, while the New South Wales state government said air quality in parts of the city was “hazardous.”

Schools were advised to keep pupils indoors and keep a close eye on students with asthma, the New South Wales state Education Department said. Sports lessons were canceled.
Ferry services on the harbor resumed after being suspended and high winds and low visibility disrupted flights at Sydney airport, with some aircraft diverted to Melbourne and Brisbane.

Yachts on the harbor, usually gleaming white, had a dull yellowy sheen. Drivers shuffled slowly over the Harbor Bridge, their windscreens smeared and filthy.
The cloying dust left many residents of Australia’s most populous city tight-chested with a metallic aftertaste in their mouths as they made their way to work through the haze.