Torrential rain, heavy flooding hit Middle East

Huge floods have swept through much of North Africa and the Middle East over the past week, devastating essential infrastructure and leaving rubbish flowing through some urban streets.

Egypt, Lebanon and the Western Sahara were among the hardest hit by days of freak weather that saw baseball-sized hailstones falling in Israel and snowstorms on the country’s border with Syria.

In Western Sahara, refugee camps housing 90,000 people were left flooded, with hundreds of mud-brick homes completely destroyed, local journalists told Middle East Eye. Torrential rains also damaged five camps housing some 90,000 Sahrawi refugees in western Algeria, the UN's refugee agency said. The camps are located in the Tindouf region close to the border with Morocco and Western Sahara, with UNHCR saying it was providing at least 25,000 people with assistance. 

In Egypt, the coastal city of Alexandria, the second largest in the country, was worst affected.

Seven people were killed on Sunday when a power line feeding the city’s tram system fell into the water and electrocuted passers-by.

Two children were among the dead - activists on social media circulated an image of a man walking through the water holding the body of one of them.

Entire streets of the town were completely submerged by the rainfall, which began on Saturday night and continued into Sunday, severely hampering rescue attempts.

Many blamed Alexandria authorities for failing to take adequate precautions after predictions of bad weather.

Locals surrounded the car of Alexandria governor Hani al-Messiri on Sunday, demanding his resignation.

Messiri stepped down a few hours later.

Some, however, laid the blame for the flooding on corruption, which many Egyptians see as endemic in the country’s large public sector.

Translation: Listen to this scandal: the army started a project to overhaul the pumping stations in Alexandria in the days of Adel Labib [governor of Alexandria during the Mubarak era]…they took 55 million EGP [$6.8 mn USD]

Translation: And from then until now, Alexandria is still drowning 

In Lebanon, too, activists were quick to blame the government after heavy rainfall left bags of rubbish streaming down the streets of the capital, Beirut.

Beirut is in the grip of a months-long rubbish crisis that began when the city’s main landfill site without finding an alternative.

On Saturday heavy rains sent the mountains of piled-up rubbish streaming through the streets, raising fears of a possible public health crisis.