DOHA: Retailers of room heaters and affordable winter clothing reported brisk sale yesterday as a bitter cold spell suddenly took the country in its grip.
A lot of people also complained of sudden sicknesses like body pain, flu, cough and cold and fever, medical sources said. A nurse working at a large construction site where some 2,000 workers are normally engaged, said work was not affected but some workers were indeed complaining of aforementioned illnesses.
“If earlier, five or 10 workers were coming to us with the above-said complaints each day, due to the cold weather that number has suddenly jumped to around 25,” said the nurse not wanting his name in print.
Meanwhile, people, especially householders with small children, rushed to retail outlets yesterday to buy room heaters.
The sudden demand led stocks to exhaust, particularly of room heaters that were priced in the range of QR100.
“We had 24 heaters, each priced at QR115 and all of them were sold out in a matter of hours,” a salesman at the outlet said.
That aside, he outlet sold out some 20 heaters fitted with fans, and each priced at QR229, the salesman told this newspaper.
Some five to six oil heaters costing QR329 apiece were sold by the outlet, according to the salesman.
Some shops said they did not get sufficient number of room heaters this time because they were not expecting a bitter cold spell like the current one when nightly temperature fell to 10 degrees Celsius in Doha and several other areas of the country yesterday.
Meanwhile, a clothing store reported large sale of winter clothing like jackets and sweaters.
“We don’t have many jackets and sweaters in the price range of QR50 to QR100 left,” said a salesman of this outlet.
Most buyers were limited-income single workers, he said. People in middle and upper income brackets and with families already have enough winter clothing.
“At the start of every winter I get my warm clothing as well as blanket dry-cleaned,” said an expatriate in middle-income bracket.
Wood suppliers to winter camps in the desert areas also reported brisk sale as winter campers bought more wood for camp fire.
The Peninsula
