Dubai (AFP) – Dubai's giant highways were clogged by flooding and airport passengers were urged to stay away on Wednesday as the glitzy financial centre reeled from record rains.
Huge tailbacks snaked along six-lane expressways after up to 254 millimetres of rain -- about two years' worth -- fell on the desert United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.
At least one person was killed after a 70-year-old man was swept away in his car in Ras Al-Khaimah, one of the country's seven emirates, police said.
Passengers were warned not to come to Dubai airport, the world's busiest by international traffic, "unless absolutely necessary", an official said.
"Flights continue to be delayed and diverted... We are working hard to recover operations as quickly as possible in very challenging conditions," a Dubai Airports spokesperson said.
Dubai's flagship Emirates airline cancelled all check-ins on Wednesday as staff and passengers struggled to arrive and leave, with access roads flooded and some metro services suspended.
At the airport, long taxi queues formed and delayed passengers milled around. Scores of flights were also delayed, cancelled and diverted during Tuesday's torrential rain.
The storms hit the UAE and Bahrain overnight Monday and on Tuesday after lashing Oman, where 18 people were killed, including several children.
Climatologist Friederike Otto, a specialist in assessing the role of climate change on extreme weather events, told AFP it was "high likely" that global warming had worsened the storms.
Official media said it was the highest rainfall since records began in 1949, before the formation of the UAE in 1971.
Both the Oman and the UAE, which hosted last year's COP28 UN climate talks, have previously warned that global warming is likely to lead to more flooding.
Friederike Otto, a leader in the field of assessing the role of climate change on specific extreme weather events, said it was likely that global warming played a part.
"It is highly likely that the deadly and destructive rain in Oman and Dubai was made heavier by human-caused climate change," said Otto, of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.
Rain 'scares me'
Flagship shopping centres Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates both suffered flooding and water was ankle-deep in at least one Dubai Metro station, according to images posted on social media.
Some roads collapsed, residential communities were hit by heavy flooding and many householders reported leaks from roofs, doors and windows.
Schools were shut across the UAE and were expected to remain closed on Wednesday, when further storms are forecast. Dubai's government also extended remote working for its employees into Wednesday.
Some inland areas of the UAE recorded more than 80 millimetres (3.2 inches) of rain over 24 hours to 8:00 am, approaching the annual average of about 100mm.
The National Center for Meteorology "urged residents to take all the precautions... and to stay away from areas of flooding and water accumulation" in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The Asian Champions League football semi-final between the UAE's Al Ain and Saudi side Al Hilal, due to be hosted in Al Ain, was postponed for 24 hours because of the weather. Bahrain, to the UAE's north-west, was also hit by heavy rain and flooding after being pummelled by thunder and lightning overnight.
"I like to play in the rain, but for the first time it scares me," said nine-year-old Ali Hassan, as he helped his mother clear water from outside their house in Bahrain's capital Manama.
The storms descended on the UAE, Bahrain and parts of Qatar after hitting Oman, where they caused deadly floods and left dozens stranded. A child's body was recovered on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 18 with two people missing, emergency authorities told the official Oman News Agency.
Nine schoolchildren and three adults died when their vehicles were swept away in flash floods, the news agency reported on Sunday.