The picture at left is in Sidon, Lebanon. That's a solid wall of water behind those folks. (Arab News)The Middle East is having a really rough weekend and start to the week. It looks as if the Powers that Be, or somebody, are sending a message to climate change deniers, or somebody. Let's see now:
- Snowstorms in Damascus (where at least it ends a long drought). The UAE's The National has a picture, at right,
of a tree down in the snow in a Damascus street. The port of Tartus has been closed due to high seas.
- Flooding in Saudi Arabia; evacuations near Medina.
- Lebanon has at least one dead, all sorts of disruptions. The shot at left, like the first one above, is also sunny Lebanon. (Daily Star)
- The Port of Alexandria and seven other Red Sea and Mediterranean Egyptian ports were closed due to high seas, and two factories collapse in Alexandria, apparently from water damage. Middle Eastern buildings are not built for massive weights of water on the roof, and I'm sure some of the mud-huts in villages are collapsing as well.
- Israel: Snow in the Golan; sandstorms in the Negev;
Ben-Gurion flights disrupted; 100 kph winds in places. The scene at right from the Jerusalem Post is somewhere in Israel. Apparently a Moldovan freighter sank off Ashdod in heavy seas as well, though the crew was rescued.
- Cairo is having dust/sand storms, and it isn't the spring khamsin season. The Arabist gives us a video from Sunday:
Cairo Dust Storm 2010-12-12 from arabist on Vimeo.
Even my readers who've never been to the Middle East will doubtless recognize: this isn't normal, folks. It's a major natural disaster. Following the Carmel fire, heavy rains during two successive observations of the hajj, and such, it's an interesting augury.As a publisher very concerned with protecting copyright, let me apologize for purloining these pictures, but I've tried to give credit. And they need to be seen.
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