Rain causes waterlogging, traffic jams

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By Afkar Abdullah, Amira Agarib, Sajila Saseendran  www.khaleejtimes.com

SHARJAH — Heavy traffic jams continued to affect Sharjah since yesterday, as rainwater clogged several parts of the city and some parts of Dubai after the heavy downpour on Friday.

Several parts of Dubai received moderate to heavy rainfall on Friday morning. KT Photo by Muaz Shabandri
Several parts of Dubai received moderate to heavy rainfall on Friday morning. KT Photo by Muaz Shabandri

Traffic conditions within Dubai were relatively smooth. By 4pm on Friday evening, traffic on all major roads including Al Khail Road and Business Bay Crossing were moving smoothly. Hussain Al Banna, Manager of Traffic and Safety in Road and Transport Authority said: “Emergency teams have been deployed on several sites across Dubai. Currently, we have 36 locations with water accumulations and more than 30 staff and 25 contractors working to drain the water. There are no major road blocks within the city. We have several staff working in recovery.”

The RTA also displayed ticker messages to motorists to reduce speed and avoid waterlogged roads. To ease congestion, authorities diverted traffic on Emirates road towards the Dubai Bypass Road, Al Ittihad, Beirut and Damascus Road.

The emergency teams of Dubai Municipality were out in full swing to clear the water logging across the main streets as the civic body’s call centre hotline 800900 was flooded with nearly 1,000 calls from people complaining about rain havoc. More info