(Dubai) Flooded highways, closed schools and disrupted air traffic: Dubai struggled on Wednesday to recover from the record rains which fell the day before on the most famous of the Gulf emirates.
Despite the return of the sun, long queues formed on six-lane highways, some sections of which were still submerged, as the United Arab Emirates recorded 254 millimeters (mm) of rain in one day on Tuesday, the equivalent of nearly two years of precipitation in this desert country.
After the cancellation and diversion of dozens of flights the day before, travelers were asked on Wednesday not to go to Dubai airport, the busiest in the world in terms of international traffic, “unless absolutely necessary.” need “.
“Flights continue to be delayed and diverted (…) We are working hard to restore operations as quickly as possible in very difficult conditions,” said a spokesperson for Dubai Airports.
The airline Emirates, the flagship of the emirate, has suspended check-ins due to difficulties in accessing the airport for staff and passengers, with roads still blocked and some metro services suspended.
PHOTO RULA ROUHANA, REUTERS
Travelers were urged on Wednesday not to travel to Dubai airport, the world’s busiest in terms of international traffic, “unless absolutely necessary”.
Long queues formed outside airport taxi ranks, while many passengers inside waited for news of their flights.
“It’s complete chaos, no information, nothing,” fumed a passenger, while a crowd gathered in front of an information desk whistled in protest.
In the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, at least one person died, a 70-year-old man whose car was swept away by the waters, police announced.
“Horrible” situation
In a televised intervention, the President of the Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, ordered the authorities “to quickly examine the state of infrastructure across the country and limit the damage caused”, according to the news agency official WAM.
He also asked that families whose homes were affected by bad weather be housed in safe places.
Taken by surprise by the torrential rains, a motorist whose 15-minute journey turned into a 12-hour epic on Tuesday said he was “very scared”.
PHOTO AMR ALFIKY, REUTERS
Rainfall in the United Arab Emirates is the heaviest ever recorded in the country.
“It was one of the most horrible situations I had ever been through, because I knew that if my car broke down, it would sink and I would drown with it,” he said, without wanting to give his name.
On Wednesday, some homes were still without power, while abandoned cars continued to float in certain neighborhoods still flooded with water.
The authorities announced the closure of schools all week, highlighting the difficulties of returning to normal.
“Very difficult conditions”
The storm hit the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on Monday and Tuesday, after hitting Oman, another Gulf country, where 19 people, including several children, were killed.
Rainfall in the United Arab Emirates is the heaviest ever recorded in the country since records began in 1949, according to authorities.
For Friederike Otto, lecturer in climate sciences at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, “the deadly and destructive rains in Oman and Dubai” were probably accentuated by “man-made climate change”.
“Desert lands need more time than others for water to infiltrate. The amount of rain that fell was too much to absorb,” said Maryam Al Shehhi of the National Meteorological Center, assuring that the country had not resorted to cloud seeding.
This technology, often used in the country to generate artificial rain, was not deployed because the storm “was already strong”, she said.
Schools will also remain closed until next week in Bahrain, which recorded record one-day rainfall of 96.88 mm on Tuesday, beating the 67.9 mm recorded in 1995.
reference: www.lapresse.ca