Dubai floods: Due to heavy rainfall and bad weather in Dubai and neighboring middle-eastern countries in the last 48 hours, four flights from Mangaluru International Airport to Dubai and vice-versa were cancelled today (April 17).
Another flight from Tiruchirapalli to Mangaluru was also cancelled and a flight from here to Jeddah was delayed today, officials said. According to an airport official, the flights cancelled were of Air India Express.
The official said that flight number 814 from Dubai to Mangaluru, 813 from Mangaluru to Dubai, 384 from Dubai to Mangaluru and flight number 383 from Mangaluru to Dubai have been cancelled.
Similarly, Air India Express flight number 797 from Mangaluru to Jeddah this evening is still delayed. On the other hand, Air India Express flight number 814 coming from Dubai to Mangaluru has been cancelled for Thursday also.
Similarly, on Thursday, Air India Express flight number 796 from Jeddah to Mangaluru and Air India Express flight number 1498 from Mangaluru to Tiruchirappalli will also be delayed.
Since midnight of 15th April, there has been heavy water logging at many places in Dubai disrupting regular activities as well as air travel. In Dubai, a record 100 mm rainfall was recorded in just 12 hours on Tuesday (April 16), according to reports.
Storm dumps record rain across desert nation
The desert nation of the United Arab Emirates attempted to dry out on Wednesday from the heaviest rain ever recorded there after a deluge flooded out Dubai International Airport, disrupting flights through the world's busiest airfield for international travel.
The state-run WAM news agency called the rain Tuesday a historic weather event that surpassed anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949. That's before the discovery of crude oil in this energy-rich nation then part of a British protectorate known as the Trucial States.
Rain also fell in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. However, the rains were acute across the UAE. One possible contributor may have been “cloud seeding,” in which small planes operated by the government fly through clouds burning special salt flares. Those flares can increase precipitation.
Several reports quoted meteorologists at the National Center for Meteorology as saying they flew six or seven cloud-seeding flights before the rains. Flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed one aircraft affiliated with the UAE's cloud-seeding efforts flew around the country Monday.
(With agency inputs)
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