The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday announced $544 million to repair the homes of Emirati families after heavy rains last week caused flooding and damaged the oil-rich Gulf state.
After the cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said, “We have learned a big lesson in heavy rain,” adding that the minister has approved “two billion dirhams for the destruction of residents’ houses.”
Wednesday’s news comes more than a week after unprecedented floods ravaged the desert country, turning roads into rivers and leaving Dubai airport, the world’s busiest for international passengers, stranded.
“A ministerial committee has been tasked with tracing files and paying compensation in cooperation with other federal and local authorities,” said Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, one of the worst affected, among seven officials from the UAE.
The heaviest rain in the UAE since it began 75 years ago has killed at least four people, including three Filipino workers and an emir. UAE authorities do not pay official fees.
A second cabinet committee has also been formed to take stock of infrastructure damage and propose solutions, Sheikh Mohammed said in an earlier tweet.
“It has never been at its worst, but we are a country that learns from every experience,” he said.
Climatologist Friederike Otto, an expert in assessing the role of global warming in extreme weather events, told AFP that the rainfall is likely to be “exacerbated by human-induced climate change”.
‘NOT OPEN’
A storm made landfall in Oman for the first time on April 14, killing at least 21 people, according to the official Oman News Agency.
Then he beat the UAE, which rained two years under a federal monarchy with 90 percent of the expatriate population before it calmed down last Wednesday.
But central Dubai, known as a glamorous city, was flooded with streets and houses after the day.
Dubai Airport canceled 2,155 flights, diverted 115 and could not return to full capacity until Tuesday.
“We must admit that there is an unjustified and unacceptable shortage and recession in services and crisis management,” said prominent Emirati analyst Abdulkhaleq Abdulla X.
“We hope this will not happen again in the future,” he said.
Dubai is now back to normal with public transport fully operational and all major roads operating.
But for 56-year-old British citizen Matthew Faddy, who lives in a shopping mall in the UAE, full recovery is still a few days away.
His first floor flat near the lake flooded last week, breaking the half meter wall in his garden.
“Finally, the water has gone down a lot, but it really started going down yesterday,” he told AFP on Wednesday.
“At worst, the water was like chest-high in the apartment, and from what I saw now … it was below the knees,” said Faddy, a music composer and sound designer.
“I think it will be another week before the water is gone.”
UAE announces $544 mn for rain repairs
