Dubai’s international airport diverted scores of incoming flights on Tuesday (Apr 16) as heavy rains lashed the United Arab Emirates, causing widespread flooding around the desert country.
The world’s busiest air hub for international passengers confirmed a halt to arrivals at 7.26pm (11.26pm Singapore time) before announcing a “gradual resumption” more than two hours later.
Earlier the airport, which had been expecting more than 100 flight arrivals on Tuesday evening, took the equally unusual step of briefly halting its operations in the chaos caused by the storm.
Dubai, the Middle East’s financial centre, has been paralysed by the torrential rain that caused floods across the UAE and Bahrain and left 18 dead in Oman on Sunday and Monday.
Dubai airport operations were suspended for 25 minutes in the afternoon before resuming. Unconfirmed images on social media showed planes taxiing across an apron flooded with standing water.
Flydubai said on Tuesday it temporally suspended all of its flights departing from Dubai until Wednesday morning due to bad weather, the UAE state news agency WAM reported.
“All flydubai flights scheduled for departure from Dubai this evening (Apr 16) have been cancelled effective immediately until 10am (2pm, Singapore time) on Apr 17. During this period, passengers who do not have Dubai as their final destination will not be accepted for travel,” a flyDubai spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Departure flights remained in operation during the evening but were plagued with delays and cancellations. Access roads to the airport were also badly flooded.
International airline Emirates said on its official X account on Wednesday morning that multiple flights to and from Dubai were “experiencing delays or disruptions” because of “adverse weather conditions”.
Other locations across the oil-rich Gulf state, better known for its arid climate and intense summer heat, also reeled from the storm.
Both 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 human-caused climate change made the deadly and destructive rain in Oman and Dubai heavier,” said Otto, of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.
Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/dubai-airport-diverts-flight-weather-flood-hits-city-4270091