DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 17 Apr: The desert nation of the United Arab Emirates attempted to dry out Wednesday from the heaviest rain ever recorded there after a deluge flooded out Dubai International Airport, disrupting flights through the world\u2019s busiest airfield for international travel.
\nThe state-run WAM news agency called the rain Tuesday \u201ca historic weather event\u201d that surpassed \u201canything documented since the start of data collection in 1949.\u201d That\u2019s before the discovery of crude oil in this energy-rich nation then part of a British protectorate known as the Trucial States.
\nRain also fell in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. However, the rains were acute across the UAE.
\nOne possible contributor may have been \u201ccloud seeding,\u201d in which small planes operated by the government fly through clouds burning special salt flares. Those flares can increase precipitation.
\nSeveral reports quoted meteorologists at the National Center for Meteorology as saying they flew six or seven cloud-seeding flights before the rains. Flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed one aircraft affiliated with the UAE\u2019s cloud-seeding efforts flew around the country Monday.
\nThe National, an English-language, state-linked newspaper in Abu Dhabi, quoted an anonymous official at the center on Wednesday as saying no cloud seeding took place on Tuesday, without acknowledging any earlier flights.
\nThe center did not respond to questions Wednesday from the AP.
\nThe UAE, which heavily relies on energy-hungry desalination plants to provide water, conducts cloud seeding in part to increase its dwindling, limited groundwater.
\nScientists also say climate change in general is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme storms, droughts, floods and wildfires around the world. Dubai hosted the United Nations\u2019 COP28 climate talks just last year. Rising temperatures and other effects of global warming long have been viewed as a threat to life in the already-baking region.
\nThe rains began late Monday, soaking the sands and roadways of Dubai with some 20 millimeters (0.79 inches) of rain, according to meteorological data collected at Dubai International Airport. The storms intensified around 9 a.m. local Tuesday and continued throughout the day, dumping more rain and hail onto the overwhelmed city.
\nBy the end of Tuesday, more than 142 millimeters (5.59 inches) of rainfall had soaked Dubai over 24 hours. An average year sees 94.7 millimeters (3.73 inches) of rain at Dubai International Airport, a hub for the long-haul carrier Emirates.
\nAt the airport, standing water lapped on taxiways as aircraft landed. Arrivals were halted Tuesday night, and passengers struggled to reach terminals through the floodwater covering surrounding roads.
\nOne couple, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to speak freely in a country with strict laws that criminalize critical speech, called the situation at the airport \u201cabsolute carnage.\u201d
\n\u201cYou cannot get a taxi. There\u2019s people sleeping in the Metro station. There\u2019s people sleeping in the airport,\u201d the man said Wednesday.
\nThey ended up getting a taxi to near their home some 30 kilometers (18 miles) away, but floodwater on the road stopped them. A bystander helped them over a highway barrier with their carry-on luggage, the bottles of gin they picked up from duty-free clinking away.
\nDubai International Airport acknowledged Wednesday morning that the flooding had left \u201climited transportation options\u201d and affected flights as aircraft crews couldn\u2019t reach the airfield.
\n\u201cRecovery will take some time,\u201d the airport said on the social platform X.
\nEmirates said the airline had halted check-in for passengers departing from Dubai itself from 8 a.m. until midnight Wednesday as it tried to clear the airport of transit passengers \u2014 many of whom had been sleeping where they could in its cavernous terminals. AP<\/p>\n
Passengers on FlyDubai, Emirates\u2019 low-cost sister airline, also faced disruptions.
\nPaul Griffiths, the airport\u2019s CEO, acknowledged continued issues with flooding Wednesday morning, saying every place an aircraft could be safely parked was taken. Some aircraft had been diverted to Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, the city-state\u2019s second airfield.
\n\u201cIt remains an incredibly challenging time. In living memory, I don\u2019t think anyone has ever seen conditions like it,\u201d Griffiths told the state-owned talk radio station Dubai Eye. \u201cWe are in uncharted territory, but I can assure everyone we are working as hard as we possibly can to make sure our customers and staff are looked after.\u201d
\nEgypt\u2019s national carrier, EgyptAir, also temporarily suspended flights between Cairo and Dubai due to the bad weather.
\nSchools across the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, largely shut ahead of the storm and government employees were largely working remotely if able. Many workers stayed home as well, though some ventured out, with the unfortunate stalling out their vehicles in deeper-than-expected water covering spots on some roads. That included parts of the Sheikh Zayed Road, a 12-lane highway through downtown Dubai.
\nAuthorities sent tanker trucks out into the streets and highways to pump away the water. Water poured into some homes, forcing people to bail out their houses.
\nThe country\u2019s hereditary rulers offered no overall damage or injury information for the nation, as some slept in their flooded vehicles Tuesday night. In Ras al-Khaimah, the country\u2019s northernmost emirate, police said one 70-year-old man died when his vehicle was swept away by floodwater.
\nKhatm al-Shakla, an area near Al Ain in Abu Dhabi, saw 254 millimeters (10 inches) of rain Tuesday, the most anywhere in the country, officials said.
\nAuthorities canceled school and the government instituted remote work again for Wednesday. Dubai later closed schools for the rest of the week.
\nRain is unusual in the UAE, an arid, Arabian Peninsula nation, but occurs periodically during the cooler winter months. Many roads and other areas lack drainage given the lack of regular rainfall, causing flooding.
\nMeanwhile in neighboring Oman, a sultanate that rests on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, at least 19 people were killed in heavy rains in recent days, according to a statement Wednesday from the country\u2019s National Committee for Emergency Management. That includes some 10 schoolchildren swept away in a vehicle with an adult, which saw condolences come into the country from rulers across the region. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 17 Apr: The desert nation of the United Arab Emirates attempted to dry out Wednesday from the heaviest rain ever recorded there after a deluge flooded out Dubai International Airport, disrupting flights through the world\u2019s busiest airfield for international travel. The state-run WAM news agency called the rain Tuesday \u201ca historic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-239035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}