With temperatures that can go above 50C (122F), Iraqi building sites have long been a hazardous place to work in summer. Labourers grapple with bricks that are too hot to touch and tiles that can burn. Some faint and fall from buildings.
The risks are growing in a country which the United Nations has identified as the fifth-most vulnerable to climate change, prompting calls for a rethink of work practices and better safeguards - in construction and more widely.
Other countries in the region, notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have long enforced a mid-day break from work in direct sunlight from around noon till 3 p.m. He said that the ministry received no formal complaints from workers about heat, adding that Iraqis had possibly become used to high temperatures in a country where 45C is considered normal in summer.More than a dozen workers Reuters spoke to between Basra and Baghdad said they had regularly seen colleagues faint on building sites, and even fall from buildings when the temperature got too high.
Iraq recorded around 4,000 work-related injuries in 2022, she said, citing labour ministry data. But this was likely a significant undercount and it was unclear how many were related to heat, she said.
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