Ali al-Ahmed in the Guardian (UK): Last week the Saudi city of Jeddah was afflicted by heavy rains that lasted only a few hours but caused massive flooding and the deaths of more than 500 people. To lessen the embarrassment, official reports shrank the number of flood-related deaths to just over 100. Many Saudis are asking how such a catastrophe could occur in one of the world's richest countries and in its second-largest and most cosmopolitan city.This was the most severe nature-related calamity that the world's largest oil exporter has seen in the past 50 years but the real reason for the death and destruction that occurred last Wednesday is endemic corruption in the Saudi government.
Jeddah is a great example of corruption. This city of more than 4 million people still lacks a sewage system and treatment facility. The rain that fell last week had nowhere to go but to flood the streets and neighbourhoods, creating havoc and death in its path.
Hundreds of bodies were swept in the current and up to 11,000 people may be missing in the sea, according to a report two days ago by the Saudi newspaper al-Yaum. This figure may be inflated but the number of the missing and dead surely ranks in the hundreds, and could turn out to exceed a thousand. For comparison, hurricane Katrina in the US killed about 1,800 people.
The Saudi government reaction to the disaster in Jeddah followed the usual formula of denial followed by blame of the victims for failing to follow government orders. Instead of taking responsibility, a Prince Khalid al-Faisal, the governor of Mecca region, in which Jeddah lies, blamed "arbitrarily built" neighbourhoods, and not the absence of a sewage system. Saudi media, which is mostly owned and fully controlled by the ruling family, followed suit and pointed a finger at citizens who bought land and built houses in unplanned areas….
A map of Jeddah, created by Physchim62 using data from OpenStreetMap, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License
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