LONDON: Billions of people in Asia, including India, could starve in the event of a war in the Gulf an international conference was told here.
Hundreds of simultaneous oil well fires that may erupt in Kuwait, if a war breaks out, would prevent monsoons and there could be no rains for years, Dr John Cox, a chemical engineer, who has worked in the Gulf oilfields, said Jan 2.
He told an international conference on the disastrous effects on a gulf war on environment here that the fires could rage for a decade and trigger a huge environmental disaster.
Dr Cox said the huge volumes of smoke would cause temperatures to drop and lead to the failure of the annual rains. Enormous amounts of sulphur dioxide, the cause of acid rains, would be emitted, he added.
The scientists attending the conference later set up an emergency task force to evaluate the aftermath of a possible war in the region.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 11, 1991
