Cairo: Five people died on Sunday in accidents as heavy rain fell on Egypt’s Mediterranean a city of Alexandria, health authorities said.
Prime Minister Sharif Esmail arrived in the city on Sunday to survey the situation described by a local official as a catastrophe.
The event has led to the resignation of the governor of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria over the poor response to flooding that devastated parts of the city following a weekend rainstorm, the government said.
Hany Al Missiry's resignation, announced by government spokesman Osama Abdul Aziz late Monday.
Egypt's President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi is chairing a crisis Cabinet meeting Tuesday to discuss the flooding and other pressing issues.
Heavy rains and severe winds caused an electric cable of a tramway in Alexandria to fall, electrocuting three people, according to the Health Ministry.
A fourth person also died by electrocution when he slipped into a flooded pit with exposed electric wires.
In a third accident, a sea skipper drowned inside his car trapped by flash floods, the ministry added.
Water levels resulting from torrential rains reached three metres high in some areas of Alexandria, Egypt’s second biggest city, local media reported.
President Al Sissi ordered the government to take “all necessary measures” to ease the consequences of bad weather in Alexandria.
The city’s governor Hany Al Messiri called the situation an “environmental catastrophe.”“The governorate is making maximum efforts to confront this environmental disaster,” Al Messiri said in a statement.
He added that Alexandria needs 75 million Egyptian pounds (around Dh 38 million) to upgrade the city’s existing drainage networks and build new ones.
Online footage showed cars stuck in streets submerged by accumulated water and young men carrying old people trapped by floodwaters.
Alexandria often experiences heavy rain and strong winds in autumn and winter. But Sunday’s weather appeared to be unusually erratic.
Critics on social media have accused local authorities in Alexandria of failing to revamp the city’s drainage system for the rainfall season
