Κατηγορίες

Rare Middle East snow brings both joy and misery

Asia 0 Comments


 


Snow carpeted Jerusalem and the eastern Mediterranean Thursday as a rare
storm turned the holy city into a winter wonderland but brought misery to the
region's Syrian refugees.



The cold snap, which has already caused major disruption in Athens and
Istanbul, saw heavy snowfall in areas better known for their summer heat.




In the alleyways of Jerusalem's walled Old City, children pelted each other
with slushy snowballs after the first flakes fell late on Wednesday.



By morning, snow crowned the golden-tipped Dome of the Rock in the Al-Aqsa
mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site and carpeted the esplanade in
front of the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray.



Israel's meteorological service reported that between 15 and 25 centimetres of
snow had fallen overnight.



It took until midday for snow ploughs to reopen the main highways leading into
Jerusalem from the north, south and west.



Schools in Jerusalem and northern Israel were closed, leaving children free to
play in the snow, which was not expected to last as temperatures rose and rain
fell.



The Israel Electric Company reported that power consumption reached an
all-time high overnight as Israels switched on the heating.



Snow also covered higher ground in the occupied West Bank, where the
Palestinian Authority closed schools and some public services.



In neighbouring Jordan, heavy snowfall blocked roads in the capital Amman and
made driving conditions treacherous across much of the country.



Jordan's Meteorological Department forecast more snowfall on higher ground
with temperatures expected to fall below freezing again on Thursday night.




Egypt recorded its coldest winter in a decade, with temperatures as much as
seven to eight degrees below the seasonal average.



The storm whipped up waves of nearly six metres, disrupting shipping in the
eastern Mediterranean, the meteorological office said.




- 'Sick and barefoot' -





In Syria, days of heavy snowfall blanketed displaced persons' camps in the
rebel-held northwest where families huddled together under canvas in
temperatures well below zero Celsius.



"We've been trapped in the snow for four days," said Abu Hussan, who lives
with his family in a makeshift camp outside the city of Jisr al-Shughur.




"We have no shoes. We are soaked with water. The children are sick and walk
barefoot. They have nothing."



The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said this week that at least 227 displacement
sites across the northwest have been hit by severe winter weather since
January 18.



It said: "545 tents have been reported destroyed and 9,125 tents damaged by
snowfall, floods and winds, along with belongings of displaced people."



In crisis-hit Lebanon, refugees and Lebanese alike struggled to secure fuel
for heating as severe weather blocked mountain roads and left Syrian refugees
shivering in flimsy tents.



In the small Mediterranean country, where the economic crisis has driven more
than 80 percent of the population into poverty, fuel prices have skyrocketed
after the cash-strapped government lifted subsidies last year.




Conditions have been particularly severe in the town of Arsal, high in the
mountains on the Syrian border, where Lebanese families and some 70,000 Syrian
refugees have been struggling to cope with the cold.



"Most of the people can't afford fuel for heating," Arsal mayor Basel Hujeiri
told AFP.




with information from thearabweekly.com


Related Posts

Post a Comment

To Top