Dubai Airport is one of the busiest in the world. But two days after torrential rains in the United Arab Emirates, traffic is slowly resuming this Thursday. The airport hopes to return to a situation “approaching normal” within 24 hours, said its CEO, Paul Griffiths, while many flights were still delayed on Thursday.
According to an airport spokesperson, 1,244 flights have been canceled and 41 diverted since Tuesday. That day, record rains, unrecorded for seventy-five years, fell on the Emirates, causing unprecedented flooding in this desert country, and killing one person. The most touristy city in the Gulf continues to slow down.
More rain and more drought
Some experts link these extreme conditions to global warming. “There are no surprises,” said Karim Elgendy, an associate fellow at the British think tank Chatham House. Scientists expect “an increase in precipitation variability,” which means more droughts, but also heavier rains, he explained.
The intensity of the phenomenon took a city by surprise, which relies in particular on the quality of its infrastructure to attract tourists and expatriates, the latter representing the majority of its population. Despite the return of the sun the day after the storm, Dubai was still partially paralyzed on Thursday for the third day in a row, with many roads blocked and several metro stations closed.
Time to assess the damage
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 the 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.