CAIRO // Severe weather swept across the region on Sunday, pounding Israel with hail, sending torrents of uncollected rubbish through the streets of Beirut and killing six people in Egypt.
The cable from a tramway in the coastal city of Alexandria landed in streets flooded with water, electrocuting the five, senior Egyptian health official Magdy Hegazy said. He said a sixth person, a judge, drowned when he was trapped in his car by the floodwaters.
State news agency Mena reported heavy rains in several other Egyptian governorates, with authorities closing the port of Ain Sokhna near the southern end of the Suez Canal because of high winds and waves.
President Abdel Fattah El Sisi ordered the government to provide aid to the hard-hit Alexandria area, while sandstorms and flash floods hit parts of the Sinai Peninsula. Cairo was also hit by a rare rainstorm.
In neighbouring Israel, high winds knocked over cranes while hail the size of tennis balls struck cities across the country.
Israeli police said they had received reports that one of the cranes struck a man, although his condition was unknown. Elsewhere, trees were knocked down, including one that hit a bus, seriously injuring a passenger.
Israeli media reported wind speeds of 100 kilometres per hour. Rain is expected to continue into Monday.
Israeli media aired footage of a crane collapsing in central Tel Aviv, cars squashed by trees and pedestrians seeking shelter from the hail.
In Lebanon, meanwhile, heavy rains caused floodwaters to mix with mounds of uncollected rubbish, raising public health concerns.
The country has been in the grip of a months-long rubbish crisis caused by the government shutting down the Beirut’s main landfill without finding an alternative. The crisis triggered mass protests against the government, which has failed to provide a number of basic services and is widely seen as corrupt and dysfunctional.
Activists from the You Stink movement, which has been leading the protests, shared videos on their Facebook page of bags of rubbish floating down a narrow street lined with cars.
The Beirut river, where rubbish has been piling up on the banks for months, resembled an open sewer. Activists volunteered to help clean it, which could revive the anti-government campaign.
* Associated Press
