Two men injured by lightning strike

Charlie Hamilton and Anna Zacharias

• Last Updated: January 16. 2009 3:32PM UAE / January 16. 2009 11:32AM GMT

Two men were injured yesterday morning when they were struck by lightning in Ras al Khaimah.

The men were among a group of labourers who were caught in a thunderstorm at a construction site in Jazirat al Hamra area. They had taken shelter from the rain under a sheet of plastic before the lightning hit them.

The two men were taken to Jazira al Hamra Medical Center and later to Ibrahim Obaidullah Hospital.

Dr Waheeba Abdul Wahed, their physician at the Ibrahim Obaidullah Hospital, said one of the men was being treated in the intensive care unit and that the other was recovering in the general ward.

“We think possibly their mobiles were the reason they got the shock,” Dr Wahed said “There was a group of them and the others were OK, but these men had their mobiles on and the mobiles were completely damaged.”

The lightning strike occurred as thunderstorms and hail lashed several parts of the UAE, bringing traffic to a stop and delaying the start of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship.

Dubai’s Business Bay district was pelted by rain. Lightning struck the Burj Dubai tower on Wednesday night, but caused no damage, a spokesman for Emaar Properties said.

Hailstones fell in Dubai at The Greens, Media City and Jebel Ali.

The rain, which meteorologists called heavy but not unusual for this time of the year, continued yesterday morning and caused flash flooding along parts of Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, while traffic was also snarled on the Al Wasl Road.

Dubai Municipality sent its entire fleet of emergency flood teams to clear water from highways, particularly in Al Barsha district.

“We had the first team out at 10pm on Wednesday night,” said Abdul Majeed Sifaee, the director of the Municipality’s drainage network department.

“By 6am yesterday all teams were out, along with 13 trucks, taking the water off the roads. We also had 17 pumps in operation around Jumeirah and Al Barsha.”

There were no traffic accidents caused by rain in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, police said.

Capt Ahmad Burqibah, the deputy director of the rescue department at Dubai Police, said three cars had to be removed from the tunnel near Media City that leads to The Palm on Wednesday after they became trapped by flood water.

“The department was receiving one call after the other from those areas and the Bur Dubai area. The busiest time was between 10pm and 3am,” Capt Burqibah said.

Dr SK Gupta at the Dubai Meteorological Office said the wet weather was caused by several electrical storms combining and sweeping in from the sea.

“We saw some heavy rain overnight into Thursday but it is not an unusual pattern of rainfall. It is consistent with what we have seen in the last four or five years,” Dr Gupta said.

A total of 5.6mm of rain fell at Dubai International Airport, according to the Meteorological Office. Rainfall figures for Abu Dhabi were not available.

Players and spectators who arrived at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship yesterday found flooding had made some paths impassable and parts of the course were severely waterlogged, delaying the start to the event by about an hour. There was also heavy rain and hail about 9am.

In Ras al Khaimah, scattered showers continued on Wednesday and Thursday, causing minor flooding in Khozam and Nakheel.

“We couldn’t reach our university,” said Rania Zaky, an 18-year-old Palestinian business student who studies in Nakheel. “It’s better than before because they made the roads wider, but some streets are still full of water.”

Main roads in Ras al Khaimah were clear yesterday, allowing traffic to proceed slowly through the city.

There were two car crashes in RAK on Tuesday and a man was killed.

Dr Gupta said: “We expect there will be about two more heavy rain spells before the end of January.”

Heavy rain was not expected this weekend, he said.

* additional reporting by Eugene Harnan and Rasha Abu Baker