Rain kills 13, traps thousands in Saudi

Heavy rain lashing Saudi Arabia for several days killed 13 people and trapped thousands away from their homes as most schools across the Gulf Kingdom remained closed, newspapers reported on Wednesday.

Four other people were still missing on Thursday while massive floods caused heavy damage to property as police struggled to cope with hundreds of reports on incidents.

The situation is reminiscent of the disaster that struck the western Red Sea port of Jeddah because of heavy rain nearly three years ago, when hundreds of people were killed or injured and massive damage was reported through the country’s second largest city. Many officials were sacked for negligence in dealing with that situation.

“All these losses in the present rain spell happened in just a few days despite warnings about the weather last week,” Sabq newspaper said.

“What happened now is a repetition of the Jeddah disaster….although SRbillions have been spent on water sewage and projects to face floods, a few days of rain showed all those projects are futile.”

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