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Sharjah: Sale of room heaters has gone up as the Siberian winds drove down temperatures to below 6C in Sharjah.
Innayath Khan, a garage worker, said it was so cold the past few days that two of his colleagues fell ill with severe fever.
He said the owner then bought two heaters, one for the garage and one for the worker's accommodation. "We bought a second-hand one," he said.
According to the Sharjah met office, the temperature dropped to 5.7C on Thursday night.
Sharjah recorded 2.5C in February of 1991, an official at the met office said.
The cold is because of the high pressure system coming from Siberia.
The forecaster expects the weather to continue being warmer in the day (21C to 25C) and colder in the nights.
Accident fears
"In the past years it was not this cold," he said, noting that in 2001 the minimum was 7.7C in Sharjah and 10.5C in Dubai.
Vasantha, an Indian housewife, said she runs the room heater two hours before her children go to bed, as she is fearful of accidents with the electric heater.
"Before we bought the heater, they used to wake up in the middle of the night crying," she said.
But Imma Cerdan said the weather reminds her of home. "It's nice to wear warm clothes and breathe in the fresh, clean air. I feel energetic," said Hussain Abdul Rahman, who had studied in Europe.
Heaters were selling like hot cakes, said salesmen at hypermarkets.
"We had 500 pieces and sold them all in less than a month. We were out of stock for a while, but have purchased 60 more pieces to meet the demand," said Satish, an employee at a hypermarket.
The prices of heaters have not gone up and have remained the same for the past two months, according to shopkeepers who also pointed out that tourists also contributed to the bulk of purchases.
"They have sold very fast. But we expected it because of the weather," said a sales executive at a supermarket, adding that small heaters cost about Dh50.
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