Chaos ensued in the United Arab Emirates after the country witnessed the heaviest rainfall in 75 years, with some areas recording more than 250 mm of precipitation in fewer than 24 hours, the state’s media office said in a statement Wednesday.
The rainfall, which flooded streets, uprooted palm trees and shattered building facades, has never been seen in the Middle Eastern nation since records began in 1949. In the popular tourist destination Dubai, flights were canceled, traffic came to a halt and schools closed.
One-hundred millimeters (nearly 4 inches) of rain fell over the course of just 12 hours on Tuesday, according to weather observations at the airport – around what Dubai usually records in an entire year, according to United Nations data.
The rain fell so heavily and so quickly that some motorists were forced to abandon their vehicles as the floodwater rose and roads turned into rivers.
Dubai’s poverty rate is 20% and a notable fraction of the population (1.5%) is slaves from central/south Asia who got their passports taken away from them, and median salary is USD$4300 (a single person’s monthly expenses are estimated to average USD$1000 excluding rent). I can’t call them a wealthy country when their citizens are far from it.
20% of the UK live in poverty.
11% of US citizens live in poverty
You can call them not rich if you want but that doesn’t change the facts that they’d be so much poorer without oil money