Crime Today News
The Indian embassy in the United Arab Emirates on Friday advised Indian passengers travelling to or through the Dubai airport to reschedule non-essential travel until operations normalise after unprecedented rainfall and floods in the city.
On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates experienced its heaviest rainfall in the 75 years that records have been kept. The rains flooded Dubai, causing widespread damage to property and infrastructure, bringing much of the emirate to a standstill.
In its advisory, the Indian embassy said that airport authorities have advised that passengers may travel to the airport “only after final confirmation from their respective airlines regarding the departure date and time of their flights”.
The Indian diplomatic mission in Dubai said that while the authorities are trying to normalise operations at the airport “the situation is unprecedented”.
Flight operations at the Dubai International Airport, which is the busiest in the world by volume of international passenger traffic, has remained disrupted even as public transportation services have gradually resumed.
The airport started limiting the number of incoming flights from 12 pm on Friday. Emirates, one of the country’s flag carrier airlines, said it was suspending check-in for all passengers on its network travelling with onward connections through Dubai for the entirety of Friday.
On Wednesday and Thursday, India’s largest airlines IndiGo and Air India had cancelled several flights to Dubai.
A record 254 mm of rainfall was recorded in Al Ain, a town close to the country’s border with Oman. This was the highest rainfall ever in a 24-hour period since record-keeping began in 1949.
The country lacks drainage systems to cope with torrential rainfall.
Government schools across the country will remain closed till Friday as a precautionary measure.
Since 2002, the United Arab Emirates government has been cloud seeding to ensure water security. However, the country’s National Center of Meteorology said there had been no such cloud-seeding operations before or during the storm on Tuesday.
The New York Times quoted experts as saying that the deluge had likely been caused by a regular rainy weather system that may have been exacerbated by climate change.
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