<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style=""><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Saudi Arabian authorities shuttered schools in several regions today as flash floods inundated roads, the latest instance of heavy rains disrupting life in the desert Gulf.</span><br></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AFPTV footage showed partially submerged cars struggling to drive through standing water in the central region of Qassim, one of the areas hit hardest overnight.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The rain continued for seven hours from the afternoon until near midnight in very large quantities,” said Mohammed, an Egyptian resident of Buraidah, capital of Qassim, who spoke on condition that only his first name be used.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Water accumulated to a height of more than 10cm in front of the residence and prevented us from going out to the street. The sound of thunder was loud and lightning was illuminating the city.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The national meteorological centre issued red alerts for Qassim and other areas, including eastern province on the Gulf, the capital here and Medina province bordering the Red Sea.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It warned of “heavy rain with strong wind, lack of horizontal visibility, hail, torrential rains, and thunderbolts”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Schools in Eastern Province and Riyadh also cancelled in-person instruction and moved classes online.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Medina education department posted on X pictures of maintenance workers repairing electricity and air-conditioning units and removing standing water from schools.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was some standing water on Riyadh’s roads today, but traffic was not significantly disrupted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rainstorms and flooding are not unheard of in Saudi Arabia, especially in winter, and larger, more densely populated cities can struggle with drainage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Such problems are an annual occurrence in Jeddah, the port city on the Red Sea coast, where residents have long decried poor infrastructure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Floods killed 123 people in the city in 2009 and 10 more two years later.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This week’s heavy rainfall in Saudi Arabia follows the intense rains that lashed the region in mid-April, killing 21 people in Oman and four in the UAE, which received the heaviest rainfall since records began 75 years ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions “most likely” exacerbated those rains, an expert group of scientists said in a study published last week. - AFP </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd/fas</div>