DUBAI (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates was still grappling with the fallout on Thursday from a record storm this week that paralyzed much of the country.
In Dubai, operations at the airport, a major travel hub, remain disrupted after Tuesday’s storm flooded the runway, resulting in flight diversions, delays and cancellations.
The airport said on Thursday morning that it had resumed accepting inbound flights at Terminal 1, used by foreign carriers, but that flights continued to be delayed and disrupted.
Emirates, the airport’s biggest airline, said it would resume passenger check-in in Dubai at 9am (0500 GMT) on Thursday, delaying the midnight restart by nine hours.
The airport struggled to get food to stranded passengers, with nearby roads blocked by floodwaters and, due to overcrowding, limited access to those with confirmed reservations.
The storm, which hit neighboring Oman on Sunday, hit the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, flooding roads and causing hours-long traffic jams as rainwater flooded homes. One person was killed in the United Arab Emirates and 20 in Oman.
Flooding trapped residents in traffic, offices and homes as the United Arab Emirates recorded the heaviest rainfall in the 75 years records have been kept, authorities said.
Authorities also told government workers and students to stay home while flooded roads were cleared.
Climate experts say rising temperatures caused by human-led climate change are leading to more extreme weather events around the world, such as the storm that hit the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
“It is likely that the storm was supercharged by climate change because there is just more moisture available in the air for any storm system to precipitate,” said Colleen Colja, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.
Researchers predict that climate change will lead to rising temperatures, increased humidity and a greater risk of flooding in parts of the Gulf region. The problem can be exacerbated in countries like the UAE, where there is a lack of drainage infrastructure to cope with heavy rains.
A UAE government agency that oversees cloud seeding – a process of manipulating clouds to increase rainfall – denied that such operations took place before the storm.
The UAE’s state news agency late on Wednesday released a statement from President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan saying he had ordered authorities to assess the damage and provide support to families affected by the storm.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell and Federico Maccioni; Editing by Tom Hogue)
