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| Posted: 27 Nov 2009 10:28 | ||
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Posts: 428 Join Date: Nov 2009 |
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Floods in Saudi Arabia have killed 77 people and scores could be missing, after the heaviest rainfall in years.
None of the casualties had been among the millions attending the Hajj pilgrimage, said a spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry. Heavy rainstorms on Wednesday had hampered the start of the annual Muslim event in the city of Mecca. The flood deaths were in the port city of Jeddah, Rabigh and Mecca, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency. It quotes officials as saying the deaths had been caused by flooding and collapsed homes. Witnesses said many of the victims were trapped in cars and buses. Twenty-one of the dead were Saudis and the rest were foreign immigrants resident in the country, said Jeddah civil defence chief Abdullah al-Amri, quoted by the Associated Press. The floods hit particularly hard in the shantytowns around the city, he added. |
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