Dubai with its feet in the water. Traffic gradually resumed this Thursday at the airport, one of the busiest in the world, while this city in the United Arab Emirates was still slowing down, two days after torrential rains.
Activity is gradually resuming but many flights are still "delayed and disrupted", said an airport spokesperson, specifying that a total of 1,244 flights had been canceled and 41 diverted since Tuesday.
That day, record rains, not recorded for 75 years, fell on the Emirates, causing unprecedented flooding in this desert Gulf country and leaving one person dead. Up to 80 mm of rain fell in 24 hours, exceptional levels in this desert region.
Despite dry and sunny weather, Dubai was still partially paralyzed on Thursday for the third consecutive day, with many roads blocked and several metro stations closed.
“I am traumatized”
Lost in a tram station, Julie and her husband, a couple in their seventies from Australia who came to spend a few days in this very touristy city, spent 24 hours on the plane instead of the 14 planned. They ended up disembarking on a remote runway, without their luggage, and then navigating the flooded city streets in search of an accessible hotel.
“I'm traumatized,” Julie said, noting that the pilot provided them with little information. “When the plane landed on this field, it was deserted, there was no terminal, no other planes, I thought we had been taken hostage by terrorists,” she says , his voice trembling.
Throughout the city, the few taxis are under attack, while main roads are still covered in several meters of water, as are certain residential areas.
Sarou Libou, a 40-year-old Indian expatriate, saw water up to her ankles in her apartment. “We cleaned everything, but we still have no electricity,” she said, affirming that teams were deployed outside her house on Thursday to pump the water. In supermarkets, many shelves were empty because they could not be restocked.
21 dead in Oman
On Wednesday, the President of the Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, ordered the authorities to “rapidly examine the state of infrastructure across the country” and to provide “the necessary assistance to families affected by bad weather” .
The storm hit the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on Monday and Tuesday, after hitting Oman, another Gulf country, where 21 people were killed, including several children, according to the latest report.