<div><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8270337.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8270337.stm</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div><img height="260" alt="Sydney city office buildings shrouded in dust, 23 September" hspace="0" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46426000/jpg/_46426657_008001254-1.jpg" width="466" border="0"></div></div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div class="headline">Sydney dust storm 'like Mars' </div>
<div class="bo">
<p></p></div>
<div class="bo">
<p><b>A storm which blew in from the Australian outback blanketed Sydney in a layer of orange dust. Here, residents describe the bizarre and frightening scene. </b>
<p>Tanya Ferguson said the dust was the weirdest thing she had seen in her life, turning the city into a scene from another planet.
<p>"It was like being on Mars," she told the BBC News website.
<p>"I haven't been there, obviously, but I imagine that's what the sky would look like."
<p></p></p></p></p></p></div>
<div class="ibox">“ <b>It was like being in the outback, but it was right here in the city </b>” <br>Tanya Ferguson <br> </div>
<div class="bo">
<p>She said she woke to a massive gust of wind blowing through her windows early in the morning.
<p>"The whole room was completely orange. I couldn't believe my eyes," she said.
<p>Ms Ferguson said she initially thought there was a bush fire. When she finally decided to venture outside, she said the entire city was covered in a film of orange dust.
<p>"All the cars are just orange - and the orange was so intense," she said by phone from Sydney, where she has lived for the past six years.
<p>"It was like being in the outback, but it was right here in the city."
<p>Ms Ferguson said the sky was overcast and it was very dusty, making her sneeze a lot.
<p>Public transport was disrupted and the roads were clogged as drivers struggled in the difficult conditions, but she said some people went to their jobs, and she saw a few residents wearing face masks.
<p>By evening, Ms Ferguson said there were blue skies over Sydney and that it was returning to a normal day.
<p><b>'Pink until noon' </b>
<p>Fellow Sydneysider Nick Beaugeard said his four young children were really frightened when they woke up on Wednesday morning.
<p>"There was a really red glow inside the house, really crimson" he said. "It looked like the end of the world."
<p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></div>
<div class="ibox">“ <b>It was like driving through a pea soup of fog, except it was bright red </b>” <br>Nick Beaugeard </div>
<div class="bo">
<p>After the initial shock, he said the children got really excited and went off to school where they said it was "pink until noon".
<p>Mr Beaugeard - who moved to Australia from the UK in 1998 - had to drive to work from the Northern Beaches area because the ferries were closed.
<p>"It was like driving through a pea soup of fog," he said, "except it was bright red".
<p>He said the lights looked blue because it was so red outside.
<p>Mr Beaugeard said his wife - who is an asthmatic - was fine despite the blanket of dust and fog.
<p>"She went out with a scarf over her mouth and she came back without it," he said.
<p>He said the dust left everyone with a dry mouth, and a really gritty taste, but caused no breathing problems for his wife.
<p><b>'Armageddon' </b>
<p>Andrew Hawkins, who lives in Northmead, about 20km from the centre of Sydney, says he was scared at first because it looked like the end of the world.
<p>"This morning's dust storm was unbelievable… It was like waking up to see that Armageddon is upon us," he wrote in. </p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></div>
<div class="ibox">“ <b>Pictures fail to capture the eerie nature of the scene which surrounded us this morning </b>” <br>Andrew Hawkins </div>
<div class="bo">
<p>Mr Hawkins said he thought his eyes were playing up, or that there had been a nuclear explosion or a bush fire.
<p>He described an ethereal scene of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House as he rode the train to work.
<p>"To see a city of such beauty shrouded in red, was a sight which cannot be described - even pictures fail to capture the eerie nature of the scene which surrounded us this morning," Mr Hawkins added.
<p>Another Sydney resident, Kirsty Ainsworth, said it was like being in a film.
<p>"It was really, really bizarre. It was actually like being in a movie - the Day After Tomorrow or Armageddon," she said.
<p>Ms Ainsworth said there had been storm warnings on Monday and Tuesday, but the dust storm took everybody by surprise.
<p>"It came out of nowhere," she said, adding that visibility had improved enough for her to make it to work by around 0830 local time.
<p>"Everybody's cars were caked in orange dust, and there's still sand everywhere," she said. </p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></div>
<div class="footer">Story from BBC NEWS:<br><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8270337.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8270337.stm</a><br><br>Published: 2009/09/23 10:43:22 GMT<br>
<br>© BBC MMIX<br> </div>
<div class="bbccom_display_none" id="bbccom_printableversionsponsorship">------------------------------------------</div>
<div class="bbccom_display_none">Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</div></div>