The United Arab Emirates and several countries in the Persian Gulf were hit by floods on Tuesday, April 16, caused by heavy rains described as “historic”. A satellite image shared by the European Copernicus Agency shows the bodies of water visible from space.
Flooded desert. On Tuesday, April 16, the United Arab Emirates was hit by unprecedented rains, the equivalent of two years of rainfall fell in a matter of hours on the emirate. Infrastructure was quickly hit and cities were flooded, including the luxury city of Dubai.
A new photo taken on April 17 by the Sentinel 2 satellite of the European agency Copernicus shows giant puddles, huge ephemeral lakes several kilometers long, for some even more than ten kilometers.
Gradual recovery
Three days after these unexpectedly heavy rains, the United Arab Emirates is cautiously recovering. The scars of this episode are still visible, as seen in photographs by Agence France-Presse on April 18:
In a televised intervention, President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan ordered authorities to “quickly examine the state of infrastructure throughout the country and limit the damage caused,” according to the official WAM news agency.
On Wednesday, some houses were still without electricity, while abandoned cars were still floating in some neighborhoods that were still flooded. Schools, closed all week, could welcome children again early next week.
Getting back to normal looks more complicated for Dubai Airport. As many as 1,244 flights were canceled in the past days, and 41 were diverted. Thousands of passengers remain stuck in crowded building corridors, including many French.
The most read
Related Posts
Cannabis will be classified as less dangerous in the United States, the sector of euphoria | TV5MONDE
In Kenya, hard work is being done to save the raptors, which are threatened with extinction
