"I am really a big supporter of Dubai and what is being created here," says Erdmann in a video, and continues: "But it is an absolute catastrophe, how bad the sewage system is." Instead of a sewer system, there would only be holes in the ground, she says. "I don't think I'll be able to get out of here today," she says after finding refuge in an industrial area.
"It just didn't work anymore, it started raining even worse," she says in the video after being forced to seek refuge in a large shopping center. "Some of them are already sinking," she says in a recent story. Nearly 10 centimeters of rain fell in just 12 hours on Tuesday - roughly what Dubai receives in a whole year. Video on social media showed water rushing through an area shopping center and flooding the ground floors of homes. Dubai, like the rest of the United Arab Emirates, has a hot and dry climate. As the atmosphere continues to warm, it is able to absorb more moisture like a towel and then release it in the form of even heavier torrents of flooding rain. Extreme weather events have become more common in recent decades, which experts have linked to man-made climate change. There were also heavy, unexpected rains in Greece in September 2023. The same storm system crossed the Arabian Peninsula and moved across the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday. The rain that submerged Dubai is linked to a larger storm system crossing the Arabian peninsula and moving through the gulf of Oman. There have also been severe storms in Bavaria recently. The airport temporarily stopped operations.