UAE announces $544 million for repairs after record rains

"We learned great lessons in dealing with severe rains," said Prime MinisterSheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum after a cabinet meeting, adding thatministers approved "two billion dirhams to deal with damage to the homes ofcitizens".
Wednesday's announcement comes more than a week after the unprecedenteddeluge lashed the desert country, where it turned streets into rivers andhobbled Dubai airport, the world's busiest for international passengers, reports BSS.
"A ministerial committee was assigned to follow up on this file... anddisburse compensation in cooperation with the rest of the federal and localauthorities," said Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the ruler of Dubai, which wasone of the worst hit of the UAE's seven sheikhdoms.
The rainfall, the UAE's heaviest since records began 75 years ago, killed atleast four people, including three Filipino workers and one Emirati. UAEauthorities have not released an official toll.
Cabinet ministers also formed a second committee to log infrastructure damageand propose solutions, Sheikh Mohammed said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
"The situation was unprecedented in its severity but we are a country thatlearns from every experience," he said.
The storm -- which dumped up to two years' worth of rain on the UAE, afederal monarchy with a 90 percent expatriate population -- had subsided bylast Wednesday.
But the glam-hub of Dubai, touted as a picture-perfect city, faced severedisruption for days later, with water-clogged roads and flooded homes.
Dubai airport cancelled 2,155 flights, diverted 115 and did not return tofull capacity until Tuesday.
"We must acknowledge... that there has been an unreasonable and unacceptabledeficiency and collapse in services and crisis management," prominent Emiratianalyst Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said Wednesday on X.
"We hope that this will not be repeated in the future," he added, in a rarepublic rebuke.
Climatologist Friederike Otto, a specialist in assessing the role of globalwarming on extreme weather events, told AFP it was "high likely" that therainfall "was made heavier by human-caused climate change".