Marco Polo describes how the simoom works. You're riding from the coastal
town of Hormuz northward to Kerman. Actually, Hormuz isn't much of a
town, for most of the townsfolk have left for the more temperate island
offshore. Now only robbers and cripples and low types haunt its fetid,
hellish alleys.

Anyway, you're riding north, getting out of there, always a good idea,
when — suddenly, and without warning, the simoom hits. There's no place
to run, no place to hide. This wind has risen over the Dasht-e Lut desert
east of the Zagros, and spiraled down the mountain passes to the sea,
compressing and heating as it goes.

They find you three days later by the side of the road. When they try and
bury you, your arms and legs pull off easily, like the limbs of a well-
cooked chicken.