‘Black rain’ in Iran and the environmental cost of war

US-Israeli airstrikes on oil depots culminated in 'black rain' in Iran early last week – a phenomenon usually caused by large amounts of soot, carbon, and other pollutants in the air. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Getty Images hide caption

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Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Getty Images

US-Israeli airstrikes on oil depots culminated in 'black rain' in Iran early last week – a phenomenon usually caused by large amounts of soot, carbon and other pollutants in the air. Usually, rain leaves the atmosphere cleaner than it was before. But in this case, the rain left Tehran's residents with sore throats and burning eyes. Oily, sooty residue was all over the city. So, we talked to an environmental pollution expert to find out: What's in this 'black rain', what are its potential short- and long-term environmental and health effects, and what could recovery look like?

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This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson and Arundathi Nair, with help from Hannah Chinn. It was edited by Viet Le. Aru Nair and Angela Zhang checked the facts. The audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez.