Rain causes waterlogging, traffic jams

Top Stories

Rain causes waterlogging, traffic jams

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.

By Afkar Abdullah, Amira Agarib, Sajila Saseendran

  • Follow us on
  • google-news
  • whatsapp
  • telegram

Published: Sat 1 Dec 2012, 12:48 AM

Last updated: Tue 7 Apr 2015, 1:30 PM

Busy streets in Sharjah like the King Faisal Street, Jamal Abdul Naser Street and Al Wahda remained water-logged throughout the morning bringing traffic to a virtual halt. A commuter, Abdul Moniem, said he had come from Abu Dhabi to have lunch in Sharjah and he reached the National Paints roundabout at 12.20pm. But he was stranded there, at the same spot till 4pm. “My children began crying as they were hungry. I could not move forward or reverse my car to use an alternative road. I was just stuck,” he said. Several motorists who started from Sharjah as early as at 6am reached their destination only four to five hours later. Apart from Al Wahda-Al Ittihad road, other roads leading to Dubai were relatively smooth, except during the early hours of the day.

It’s fun watching the rain ... Karama roads fully flooded after the rains.

Captain Abdul Rahman Khatir from the Sharjah Traffic Police said during such weather conditions, police patrols are deployed to control traffic. He said the police had managed to divert vehicles to alternative routes in certain areas.

Waterlogged roads in Dubai

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.

“People call us even for small issues. But our top priority is to (clear) the roads that are affected badly,” said Khalid Abdul Rahim Abdullah, director of the Customer Relations Department that runs the call centre. He said the worst affected areas were Rashidiya, Abu Hail, Mirdiff and Deira.

afkarali@khaleejtimes.com, amira@khaleejtimes.com,

sajila@khaleejtimes.com

Clikc for more pictures..


More news from