DAMMAM: Heavy rain over the Eastern Province during the past two days has resulted in flooding in several areas which resulted in traffic jams and many cars breaking down. The flooded areas included Madinathual Ummal, First Industrial Estate areas, Dammam Port Roads, Toyota areas, Khafji, Qatif, Ras Tanura, Al-Ahsa, Al-Khobar Rakha, Jubail and Second Industrial City areas. The rain subsided Wednesday morning, but it was still overcast. Mohammed Aboud, a Saudi national, said it took him more than an hour to reach his office. “It usually takes only 10 minutes to reach my office from my apartment at Rakha, but today it took me more than an hour and I was getting very late to the office” he said. Nizam, a private school bus driver at the International Indian School, Dammam, said there was heavy traffic congestion on the highways in the early morning. He was unable to drop students at school on time. Almost all the International schools in Eastern Province reported a low turnout of students. Hundreds of motor pumps were put into action to remove water from the highways. Many tankers were seen busy pumping out water from the flooded roads. Most of the major signals were controlled manually by traffic police for the easy movement of vehicles. Rainy coats, umbrellas and caps sold out at some places because most people expect the wet weather to continue for several days.
