RIYADH // Flash floods sparked by torrential rain in Saudi Arabia have killed four people and left 10 missing over the past two days, the civil defence authority said yesterday. Two of the dead and seven of the missing were in Riyadh, with the rest in the north-eastern city of Arar.
The Saudi SPA news agency urged more than five million residents of the capital to to stay away from rivers and flooded tunnels.
Schools and universities have been closed since Sunday.
In May last year, around 20 people were killed in flooding sparked by the kingdom’s heaviest rainfall in 25 years.
Floods in the western city of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast killed 10 people in 2011 and 123 people in 2009.
Poor drainage and uncontrolled construction were blamed for the high death tolls in Jeddah.
* Agence France-Presse
