Highways flooded, schools closed, air traffic grounded and at least one person dead: Dubai struggled on Wednesday to recover from record rains that fell the day before on the seven most famous cities in the United Arab Emirates federation.
• Read also: An “exceptional” storm: heavy rains paralyze Dubai
Despite the return of the sun, long queues formed on the six-lane highways, some sections of which are still submerged in water, after the UAE recorded 254 mm of rain in one day on Tuesday, equivalent to nearly two years of rainfall in this desert country. .
Police said that at least one person, a 70-year-old man, died when his car skidded in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.
A car driver who was surprised by the heavy rain, and whose 15-minute trip turned into 12 hours on Tuesday, said he was “very afraid.”
France Press agency
“This is one of the most horrific situations in which I live in the morning, my car is safe because my future is on fire in the pan, it’s cool and I’m in the middle of nowhere,” read it to the AFP, without saying goodbye its name.
On Wednesday, some homes were still without electricity, while abandoned cars remained floating in certain neighborhoods that were still submerged in water.
France Press agency
The authorities announced the closure of schools throughout the week, highlighting the difficulties of returning to normal life.
An expatriate father in Dubai, who was stuck for six hours in his car on Tuesday, and preferred to remain anonymous, said he understands that the country is not equipped to receive such rain.
But I am disappointed by the lack of transparency and information about the real-time situation.
France Press agency
“Very difficult circumstances”
After dozens of flights were canceled and diverted the previous day, travelers were called on Wednesday not to go to Dubai Airport, the busiest in the world in terms of international traffic, “except in cases of extreme necessity.”
A Dubai Airports spokesman said: “Flights are still being delayed and diverted… We are working hard to restore operations as quickly as possible in very difficult circumstances.”
France Press agency
Emirates Airlines, the emirate's leading airline, has suspended check-in due to difficulties in reaching the airport for employees and passengers, with roads remaining closed and some metro services suspended.
Long queues formed outside the airport taxi ranks, while many passengers inside were waiting for news of their flights in a state of complete confusion.
“It's complete chaos, no information, nothing,” said one passenger angrily, as a crowd of people gathered in front of the information desk and clapped in protest.
France Press agency
The storm hit the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain overnight from Monday to Tuesday, after hitting Oman, another Gulf country, where 18 people were killed, including several children.
Rainfall in the United Arab Emirates is the heaviest on record in the country since records began in 1949, according to authorities.
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For Frederick Otto, lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, the “deadly and devastating rains in Oman and Dubai” may have been exacerbated by “human-made climate change.”
“Desert terrain takes longer than others for water to seep in. Maryam Al Shehhi, from the National Center of Meteorology, said that the amount of rain that fell was more than necessary to absorb it, stressing that the country did not resort to rain seeding.
She added that this technology, which is often used in the country to generate artificial rain, “was not deployed because the storm was already strong.”
Schools will also remain closed until next week in Bahrain, which recorded a record one-day rainfall of 96.88mm on Tuesday, surpassing the 67.9mm recorded in 1995.
