Heavy rain season in Saudi Arabia kills 7, injures 11

Seven people have been killed and 11 injured by heavy rainfall and the floods that resulted in north-eastern Saudi Arabia over the past few days.

Besides the deaths and injuries, the floodwater has damaged homes with around 1,176 affected people contacting aid agencies. Some 40 vehicles were also destroyed in traffic incidents as a result of the rain.

The heavy rain and storms began on Friday morning and the torrential downpours continued until last night in the eastern areas of the kingdom, including the areas of Harf Al-Batin, Al-Khafaji and Al-Qur’a Al-Alia.

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The Saudi Defence Department has already reported that at least 16 people trapped by the floods have been rescued and taken to safe places.

Such incidents and climatic changes are uncommon in the kingdom, which is usually subject to warmer temperatures excepting certain areas, and has raised concerns over increasing climate change and the environmental destruction which global emissions are thought to produce.

In recent years, however, the country and the region at large has been hit by a gradual number of shocking natural disasters, such as the flash floods which killed 30 people in Saudi Arabia in November last year, as well as the snowstorms which plagued much of the Gulf region in April of the same year.