Rains lash parts of Saudi Arabia; severe weather claims 14 lives

Agencies
October 31, 2018

Jeddah, Oct 31: Fourteen people have been killed in the extreme weather conditions in Saudi Arabia over the last two weeks.

The Kingdom has been hit by heavy rain and thunderstorms and officials said this year has seen some the most extreme weather conditions in decades.

The Directorate General of Civil Defense said one of the deaths occurred in Riyadh, four cases were recorded in Makkah, two in the Eastern Province, one in Asir, one in Tabuk, three in Al-Baha, one in Jazan and one in Hail.

Since Oct. 19, the Command and Guidance Center in Riyadh has received 423 requests for help from the civil defense, as the heavy rain affected 13 areas of the Kingdom, SPA reported.

Civil Defense forces rescued 299 stranded people, including 115 in Makkah. Most of those needing help were trapped in their vehicles, of which 88 people were evacuated and 282 cars were towed.

The General Authority of Meteorology and Environmental Protection warned of further bad weather with rain throughout the Kingdom, and winds and lifting dust in some areas.

Undersecretary of the Ministry of Water, Faisal Al-Subaie, said Saudi Arabia usually witnesses thunderstorms ranging between medium and heavy during this time of the year, but this year the storms have been particularly severe.

Al-Subaie said several municipalities had deployed teams to drain the excess water and clean the fallen trees and debris off the streets.

The Civil Defense has called upon citizens and residents to take precautions and not go near flooded areas or wadis, which are likely to flash flood in heavy rains. 

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V.Abdul Rahman
 - 
Wednesday, 31 Oct 2018

Ministry is warning us every day for our safety. Be safe, avoid unnecessary travel.

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News Network
April 29,2020

Dubai, Apr 29: Saudi Arabia reported 1,325 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 21,402, the Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday (April 28).

Meanwhile, the ministry reported 169 recoveries today, with total recoveries in the kingdom at 2,953. There are 125 cases in intensive care.

The ministry also confirmed 5 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths in the kingdom to 157.

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Agencies
February 26,2020

New Delhi, Feb 26: The death toll in northeast Delhi communal violence over the amended citizenship law rose to 20 on Wednesday, according to GTB Hospital authorities.

On Tuesday, the death toll was 13.

"The death toll has risen to 20 today," Medical Superintendent of GTB Hospital, Sunil Kumar, told PTI.

Earlier, at least four bodies were brought to the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital from the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, a senior official said.

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News Network
January 30,2020

Jan 30: The death toll rose to 170 in the new virus outbreak in China on Thursday as foreign evacuees from the worst-hit region begin returning home under close observation and world health officials expressed “great concern” that the disease is starting to spread between people outside of China.

Thursday’s figures cover the previous 24 hours and represent an increase of 38 deaths and 1,737 cases for a total of 7,711. Of the new deaths, 37 were in the epicenter of the outbreak in Hubei province and one in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

The news comes as the 195 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, the Hubei province city of 11 million where the outbreak originated, are undergoing three days of testing and monitoring at a Southern California military base to make sure they do not show signs of the virus.

A group of 210 Japanese evacuees from Wuhan landed Thursday at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on a second government chartered flight, according to the foreign ministry. Reports said nine of those aboard the flight showed signs of cough and fever. Three of the 206 Japanese who returned on Wednesday tested positive for the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said during a parliamentary session. Two of them showed no symptoms of the disease.

France, New Zealand, Australia and other countries are also pulling out their citizens or making plans to do so.

The World Health Organization emergencies chief said the few cases of human-to-human spread of the virus outside China — in Japan, Germany, Canada and Vietnam — were of “great concern” and were part of the reason the U.N. health agency’s director-general was reconvening a committee of experts on Thursday to assess whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.

The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.

Dr. Michael Ryan spoke at a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday after returning from a trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior government leaders. He said China was taking “extraordinary measures in the face of an extraordinary challenge” posed by the outbreak.

To date, about 99% of the cases are in China. Ryan estimated the death rate of the new virus at 2%, but said the figure was very preliminary. With fluctuating numbers of cases and deaths, scientists are only able to produce a rough estimate of the fatality rate and it’s likely many milder cases of the virus are being missed.

In comparison, the SARS virus killed about 10% of people who caught it. The new virus is from the coronavirus family, which includes those that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as SARS and MERS.

Scientists say there are many questions to be answered about the new virus, including just how easily it spreads and how severe it is.

In a report published Wednesday, Chinese researchers suggested that person-to-person spread among close contacts occurred as early as mid-December.

“Considerable efforts” will be needed to control the spread if this ratio holds up elsewhere, researchers wrote in the report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

More than half of the cases in which symptoms began before Jan. 1 were tied to a seafood market, but only 8% of cases after that have been, researchers found. They reported the average incubation period was five days.

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