Dubai, a well -known UAE city in the Middle East, Dubai reduced its heavy rain on April 16 and accumulated water in many places.A large number of passengers were forced to stay in the world's second busy Dubai airport.The local people's life order is chaotic, and water soaked vehicles can be seen everywhere.There are also new houses that people have just moved in, and they are directly poured into the house by the big water, which is helpless.
Dubai, located in the desert area of 254 millimeters within 24 hours, is more than three times the local rainfall of 3.12 inches (about 79 mm) each year, and it is also the highest since the record in 1949.Because the rainfall far exceeds the upper limit of the Dubai drainage system, flooding appears in many places, and some subway lines are stopped.The rapid rain caused the water level to rise sharply, and many drivers would abandon the car to escape.The social media platform has a number of videos showing that the malls and houses are flooded, and at least one 70 -year -old elderly even takes a car to be washed away.
Arabian Peninsula countries are usually drought and large -scale rainfall is rare. Therefore, the drainage systems of many roads and facilities are not perfect, and a heavy rain is likely to cause flooding.In addition to the UAE where Dubai is located, Balin, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are also encountered by heavy rainwater disasters. At least 18 people died in Oman, and school buses carrying 10 school children were washed away by floods.
The media pointed out that Dubai, the desert city, has not worked hard to build a urban drainage system. After all, cities in the desert are not raining often.Today, the official can only rely on pumping trucks to drain, and the progress is quite slow.
Foreigners living in Dubai said that they thought that the rain had stopped, and the stagnant water would retreat, but she was surprised to find that after two days, the accumulated water did not retreat.It can only be trapped at home, and it is very embarrassed and helpless by bread and snacks.
Local engineers believe that Dubai officials used to believe that the drainage system was not important, but as climate change and global warming, they are now paying for this decision.What is even more fatal is that once the city has developed to the current scale and stage like Dubai, it is very difficult to set the drainage system again.
This scene can't help remind people of waterlogging in Chinese cities a few years ago.In recent years, cities such as Wuhan, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Beijing have frequently encountered rape and rain attacks, which caused severe waterlogging.In 2011, "seeing the sea in Wuhan" became a popular word; in 2012, Beijing's "7? 21" heavy rain caused 77 citizens to lose their lives.
China does not have the large sewage channel of Western countries, and the drainage pipes of only 1 meter wide are built.There are only large drainage pipelines such as Qingdao.Most of the cities in mainland China have only developed a large scale after the reform and opening up, less than 50 years. This kind of sewer is expensive, so most of them have not been repaired.The opening of the sewer in China is the Soviet Union. Most of the Soviet Union's land belongs to high -cold areas. It is not suitable for building a large lower sewer that can walk away. It is more suitable to build small pipelines.
More importantly, the construction of urban construction has caused universal ground hardening, soil cannot absorb precipitation, resulting in water area water; this situation is very common in emerging countries.That is, the soil roads of the previous cities are covered with cement or concrete to turn into asphalt roads, causing the ground precipitation to not penetrate the ground. It can only converge into floods. Many big cities are waterlogging in the rain.This situation has become more and more frequent in big cities.
Similar to China, Dubai has built many high -rise buildings and skyscrapers. The beauty of urban construction and huge investment. The world is obvious to all, and there is a trend of "catching up the British Premier League".But a heavy rain was exposed to shortness and shortcomings.Only the bright side of the outside world shows the glorious side, but ignores other supporting infrastructure that it deserves, proves that this rich country in the Middle East is actually far from developed countries.
The author is not intentionally ridiculed and criticized the urban construction of a country, but just feels that when the pursuit of the development of the country and the city, the inner and external ones must go hand in hand in all aspects, otherwise it will become only the "face engineering""Image engineering", a little natural disaster and man -made disasters, the defeat side is exposed, letting the whole world discover such a bright city, it turned out to be so vulnerable, as if returning to the nomadic tribal era 100 years ago.
In recent years, the global climate is unstable, and extreme weather such as El Nino is frequent, like the floods broke out in the Sahara Desert last year; and Europe, which has always been cool and humid, has experienced rare high temperature and drought.Countries should be vigilant and aware of global climate change, and cannot continue to uphold the previous concepts. They believe that drought places will always be drought, and the humid places will always be humid. It should change ideas and take preventive measures in advance.Just like this time, the UAE President Muhammad has realized the seriousness of the problem and promised to conduct emergency research and general review for urban infrastructure.The dead sheep made up, not late.
The author is Hong Kong journalist
