Jenny Bodnarchuk took this picture of the red sky over her Sydney home after clouds of red dust coated the region.

FORMER islanders are among the thousands of people in the New South Wales region of Australia to be engulfed by dust blizzards.

Sydney is one of the worst affected areas with its famous Opera House and Harbour Bridge two eerie presences behind the orange mist.

Jenny Bodnarchuk moved to Australia in 2003. In Guernsey she used to run a charity for cancer research called the Elephant Trust, but now lives in Ramsgate close to Botany Bay and about 20 minutes from the Opera House.

She captured the dust cloud pictures outside her home.

‘It’s been so dusty. The storm came over during the night so Sydney residents woke up to a deep orange and red sky.

‘As the sun came up it gave a very eerie colour to the sky but as well as that there was dust in the air.

‘It was thick and you could taste it even indoors.

‘Everyone was talking about it and swapping photos all across the city.’

She said doing anything outside was extremely difficult.

Another Guernsey expat, Jim Edwards, said it was the only dust storm he had experienced in Sydney in 19 years.

‘This morning we drove the car onto the lawn and hosed it down. We therefore added some nice red topsoil to the lawn.’

Claire Keeling is in Fairlight and said ‘it was a bit freaky’ when she woke up and saw the red sky: ‘I woke up about 6.30am as I normally do when it’s a work day and the house was surrounded by bright orange. It was really weird as it looked like I had landed on Mars!’

She went into work but said she had trouble breathing while walking for the bus. When she arrived she heard that people with asthma and lung problems had called in sick and were staying home, as per the advice being given out by the government. ‘I can understand why, as I was out of breath walking up the hill and was coughing a lot that day.’

Despite the dust, Hornsby resident John Le Carpentier still took his dogs for a walk. ‘Walking down to the park it looked eerie seeing the car lights appear which for some reason looked a lot brighter than at night’ he said. ‘I suppose to describe it best would be like a thick fog of red dust.’

The blizzards arrived in the region after 60mph winds from the outback dumped 60,000 tons of sand in an hour, causing major disruption to transport networks.

Mr Le Carpentier said he had heard that more dust clouds are predicted for 26 September, and are also expected to reach New Zealand.