A major clean-up operation is under way on roads and in communities across the UAE after two days of heavy rain.
Some routes remained flooded on Tuesday morning causing lengthy delays for commuters, even as gloomy skies gave way to sunshine.
In Dubai, a waterlogged section of the busy Sheikh Zayed Road remains sealed off, with traffic diversions still in place early on Tuesday afternoon.
The Roads and Transport Authority urged drivers travelling on the Jebel Ali stretch to use alternative routes, in a message on X posted shortly after 6.20am.
The authority said, in response to residents on social media, it was also working to remove water from flooded areas of Al Qudra Road.
Dubai Municipality said it had sent a team to clear water from flood-hit areas.
Abu Dhabi Police said traffic was diverted from the Sieh Shuaib bridge on the Dubai-bound route from Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Road to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Road.
Mohamed Ali Al Shorafa, chairman of Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities and Transport, conducted field tours on Monday to assess the disruption caused by the storms.
Schools across the country continued with distance learning on Tuesday.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation called for private companies to apply “flexible working patterns” for employees for a second day on Tuesday.
“Necessary measures need to be taken by companies to ensure outdoor work, if necessary to resume, complies with the occupational health and safety requirements,” the ministry said.
“Companies also need to ensure the health and safety of workers commuting to and from outdoor work locations.”
Large parts of the Emirates were lashed by heavy rain, hail, thunder and lightning on Sunday evening and throughout Monday.
Dubai Police said on Tuesday it had issued 1,000 certificates to motorists seeking to make insurance claims for damage incurred during the hazardous weather.
The command centre at Dubai Police answered more than 25,000 emergency and non-emergency calls during the unstable conditions.
Calm after the storm
The National Centre of Meteorology forecasts sunny days ahead in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, although the Northern Emirates have not seen the last of the wet weather.
The weather centre said temperatures would reach highs of 27°C in Dubai and 26°C in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Thursday, with more rain expected on both days in Fujairah.
Temperatures will approach 30°C in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Friday and Saturday, the NCM's online weather map predicts.
Company name: Play:Date
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Founder: Shamim Kassibawi
Based: Dubai with operations in the UAE and US
Sector: Tech
Size: 20 employees
Stage of funding: Seed
Investors: Three founders (two silent co-founders) and one venture capital fund
How Islam's view of posthumous transplant surgery changed
Transplants from the deceased have been carried out in hospitals across the globe for decades, but in some countries in the Middle East, including the UAE, the practise was banned until relatively recently.
Opinion has been divided as to whether organ donations from a deceased person is permissible in Islam.
The body is viewed as sacred, during and after death, thus prohibiting cremation and tattoos.
One school of thought viewed the removal of organs after death as equally impermissible.
That view has largely changed, and among scholars and indeed many in society, to be seen as permissible to save another life.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
IF YOU GO
The flights
FlyDubai flies direct from Dubai to Skopje in five hours from Dh1,314 return including taxes. Hourly buses from Skopje to Ohrid take three hours.
The tours
English-speaking guided tours of Ohrid town and the surrounding area are organised by Cultura 365; these cost €90 (Dh386) for a one-day trip including driver and guide and €100 a day (Dh429) for two people.
The hotels
Villa St Sofija in the old town of Ohrid, twin room from $54 (Dh198) a night.
St Naum Monastery, on the lake 30km south of Ohrid town, has updated its pilgrims' quarters into a modern 3-star hotel, with rooms overlooking the monastery courtyard and lake. Double room from $60 (Dh 220) a night.
Tuesday's fixtures
Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
'Spies in Disguise'
Director: Nick Bruno and Troy Quane
Stars: Will Smith, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan and Roshida Jones
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Baby Driver
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Lily James
Three and a half stars
Ticket prices
- Golden circle - Dh995
- Floor Standing - Dh495
- Lower Bowl Platinum - Dh95
- Lower Bowl premium - Dh795
- Lower Bowl Plus - Dh695
- Lower Bowl Standard- Dh595
- Upper Bowl Premium - Dh395
- Upper Bowl standard - Dh295
