A huge outback dust storm swept eastern Australia and blanketed Sydney, disrupting transport, forcing people indoors and stripping thousands of tonnes of valuable farmland topsoil.
  
The dust blacked out the outback town of Broken Hill on Tuesday, forcing a zinc mine to shut down, and swept 1,167 km east to shroud Sydney in a red glow.
  
By noon the storm, carrying an estimated five million tonnes of dust, had spread to the southern part of Australia's tropical state of Queensland.


Dust storms in Australia are not uncommon but are usually restricted to the inland.

Occasionally, during widespread drought, dust storms reach coastal areas.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent and only Antartica is drier.
  
Australia is battling one of its worst droughts and weather officials say