Ports and Suez Canal closed, ship sink in storm following severe Mideast drought
Mother Nature was wreaking havoc in the eastern Mediterranean, sending a surging storm across the region Sunday which sank a ship, shut ports and caused severe damage from Syria and Lebanon to Israel and Egypt.
The heavy rains and fierce winds pummeled the Levant, ironically just days after foreign air craft were rushed to Israel to help drown out a devastating fire that burned down the Carmel Mountain forest, parched by a severe drought.
“Winter has been very late in arriving, this is the first real rainfall that we have been getting,” said Prof. Colin Price, the head of the department of geophysics and planetary sciences at Tel Aviv University.
Waves backed by gusts of up to 100 kilometers an hour hit the eastern basin coasts. Dust storms blanketed southern Israel and parts of Jordan, causing some highways to be shut. At least one major pile up was reported south of Amman.
Across the region, there were reports of downed billboards and electricity lines, and coastal regions were flooded. Snow fell for the first time this winter in Lebanon and northern Israel.
“One of the forecasts for this part of the world, not only Israel but for the whole of the Mediterranean, is for there to be less rainfall in the future and higher temperatures, and this is what we have been seeing over the last month or two,” Price told The Media Line.
“It has been unseasonably warm with very low relative humidities and one of the predictions for the future is that we may see more weather events like this.”
In the Lebanese capital of Beirut, an official at the international airport told The Media Line that wind had severely damaged four small planes tethered together on a tarmac.
Reports said that a tree falling on a vehicle in the city of Tripoli killed a 45-year-old woman as she drove along a highway.
Fishing boats were damaged in Lebanon as the storm smashed into the country's coastline, killing one person...
About eight miles off the Israeli coast, a Moldavian cargo vessel called the Adriatica sunk. The Israeli air force and navy rushed to answer its distress call, but the Ukrainian crew of 11 managed to board two lifeboats and were rescued by a passing Panamanian ship YM Great, Yigal Maor, the spokesman Israel's Shipping and Ports Authority, told The Media Line.
The waves at sea were reportedly up to 10 meters high. Also Sunday, a Turkish freighter requested assistance from the Israeli port of Ashdod after it ran out of petrol, but is said it was not in any distress.
“We sent them several of our ships to help them get into the port,” said a spokeswoman from Ashdod port who refused to divulge her name. “Now the ship is safe, and all the sailors are fine.”
Israel Radio reported that dozens of land mines had been swept up along the road circling the Sea of Galilee and sappers were dispatched to remove them. Israel Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said that two policemen had been injured when a tree fell on their patrol car.
In Egypt, all the ports in the Red Sea and the port of Alexandria and Dekheila on the Mediterranean Sea were shut. At least 26 ships were barred from entering the Suez Canal and another 29 faced heavy delays, Egyptian officials said.
The weather disrupted air traffic at international airports in Tel Aviv, Beirut and Amman. Debris blown upon the coastal railway tracks caused havoc to the Israeli railway system as commuter trains were forced to cease operations in many areas.
A breakwater at the ancient Roman city of Cesarea collapsed, exposing the ancient port to the sea’s fury and possible damage.
Across the region warnings were issued for people to avoid valleys out of fear of flash floods.