Local media reported that an elderly Emirati man in his 70s died on Tuesday morning when his vehicle was caught in flash floods in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, in the north of the country.
In neighboring Oman, 19 people died, including school children, after three consecutive days of heavy rain, according to Omani media, which published images of flood-hit communities.
The Times of Oman reports that more rain is expected on Wednesday. In Dubai, skies were clear but in some areas the streets were deserted after the government ordered its employees and all schools to work remotely for the second day in a row.
Posts in UAE media and social media showed significant damage from heavy rains in several parts of the country, including collapsed roads and waterlogged houses.
Social media posts on Tuesday showed roads and car parks flooded and some vehicles completely submerged. Sheikh Zayed Road, a 12-lane highway that runs through Dubai, was partially flooded, leaving people stuck in a kilometer-long traffic jam for hours.
Both Oman and the UAE, which hosted the UN COP28 climate talks last year, have previously warned that global warming is likely to cause more flooding.
Friederike Otto, a leader in assessing the role of climate change in certain extreme weather events, said it was likely that global warming played a role.
“It is highly likely that human-caused climate change is making the deadly and destructive rains in Oman and Dubai even heavier,” said Otto, from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.
