Dubai airport flooded after year and a half’s worth of rain falls on city in one day

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Dubai was drenched in a year and a half’s worth of rain in a single day, killing no less than one individual and disrupting journey by the world’s busiest airport.

Parts of the monetary capital had been delivered to a halt on Tuesday as nearly 6 inches of rain fell on the city, in line with official meteorological information. It was greater than what the city will get in over a year.

Photos and movies confirmed big highways submerged in water, vehicles caught, and injury to properties and companies. Authorities and communities throughout the United Arab Emirates had been clearing particles on Wednesday after the torrential downpour killed no less than one individual.

Dubai Airport, one of the busiest in the world and a essential connecting spot for long-distance flights, diverted a number of planes inflicting journey chaos because the runway was seen lined in knee-deep water.

Passengers waited for hours for his or her flights and struggled to succeed in terminals by the floodwater overlaying surrounding roads.

On Wednesday, the airport was nonetheless functioning on restricted capability. On X, the airport authority wrote there have been “limited transportation options” and affected flights as plane crews couldn’t attain the airfield.

“Recovery will take some time,” the airport stated. “We thank you for your patience and understanding while we work through these challenges.”

Some plane had been diverted to Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, the city-state’s second airfield.

One couple described the state of affairs as “absolute carnage”.

“You cannot get a taxi. There’s people sleeping in the metro station. There’s people sleeping in the airport,” The Associated Press reported one of the passengers as saying, talking on the situation of anonymity because the nation restricts criticism.

Paul Griffiths, the airport’s CEO, stated it was an “incredibly challenging time” and that each place an plane could possibly be safely parked was taken.

“In living memory, I don’t think anyone has ever seen conditions like it,” Mr Griffiths advised the state-owned discuss radio station Dubai Eye.

“We 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.”

The state-run WAM information company referred to as the rain Tuesday “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949.”

Rain additionally drenched Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman, killing no less than 18 individuals in the latter.

However, the depth was the best in the UAE. Dubai receives about 3.7 inches of rain in a year, however inside a day it acquired 5.7 inches.

The UAE authorities had issued warnings forward of the heavy rains, urging individuals to remain at residence and solely depart “in cases of extreme necessity”.

Schools throughout the seven emirates had been shut and individuals had been requested to work remotely till Wednesday.

In Ras al-Khaimah, the nation’s northernmost emirate, police stated one 70-year-old man died when his automobile was swept away by floodwater.

The rainfall was a outcome of a storm system transferring throughout the middle-east which intensified round 9am on Tuesday, drenching the desert area and overlaying it with water.

However, scientists say there are a number of components which have exacerbated the rainfall, together with UAE’s cloud seeding operations and man-made local weather disaster.

“It is highly likely that the deadly and destructive rain in Oman and Dubai was made heavier by human-caused climate change,” Federike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution WWA) which research hyperlinks between climate occasions and local weather disaster and professor at Imperial College London, advised AFP.

Rainfall of this depth is very uncommon in Dubai, leaving the arid city unprepared to deal with large-scale flooding in absence of correct drainage services. The city, which hosted final year’s local weather summit, Cop28, was additionally flooded proper earlier than the summit.

Authorities on Wednesday had been sending vehicles to flooded areas to pump out water.

Experts additionally pointed cloud seeding as one of the explanations, a solution to artificially induce rainfall by growing precipitation in clouds, one thing UAE usually does to make up for its dwindling groundwater ranges.

Some six or seven cloud seeding flights had been flown by the federal government earlier than the extraordinary rainfall started, native experiences quoted meteorologists on the National Center for Meteorology as saying.

However, the centre didn’t affirm or deny this. The Associated Press reported one plane affiliated with the UAE’s cloud-seeding efforts flew across the nation Sunday.