The United Arab Emirates is struggling to recover after the heaviest rains on record hit the desert country.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates tried to cope Thursday after the heaviest rains on record in the desert country, with its main airport allowing more flights even as floodwaters still covered parts major highways and communities.

Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, allowed international carriers to once again serve the airfield’s Terminal 1 on Thursday morning. And long-haul carrier Emirates, crucial for East-West travel, has started allowing local passengers to arrive at Terminal 3, their base of operations.

However, the CEO of Dubai Airports Paul Griffiths said in an interview with The Associated Press that the airfield needed at least another 24 hours to resume operations close to its usual schedule. Meanwhile, a Dubai desert community saw floodwaters continue to rise by up to 1 meter on Thursday as civil protection officials struggled to pump out the water.

“We were looking at the radar thinking, ‘My God, if this hits, then it’s going to be cataclysmic,'” Griffiths said of the storm. “And indeed it was.”

The airport ended up needing 22 tanker trucks equipped with vacuum pumps to remove water from its grounds. Griffiths acknowledged that taxiways were flooded during the rains, although the airport’s runways remained water-free to operate safely. Online videos of a FlyDubai flight landing with its reverse thrust spraying water have attracted worldwide attention.

“It sounds dramatic, but in reality it’s not that dramatic,” Griffiths said.

Emirates, whose operations had been struggling since Tuesday’s storm, had blocked travelers from the United Arab Emirates from checking into their flights as they tried to get connecting passengers out. Pilots and cabin crew also had difficulty reaching the airport due to water on the roads.

But on Thursday, Emirates lifted that order to allow customers into the airport. This saw around 2,000 people enter Terminal 3, once again causing long queues, Griffiths said.

Others who arrived at the airport described waiting hours to collect their luggage, with some simply giving up on going home or to whatever hotel would accommodate them.

The United Arab Emirates, a hereditary autocratic nation located on the Arabian Peninsula, generally experiences little precipitation in its arid desert climate. However, a massive storm, predicted for days by forecasters, hit the country’s seven emirates.

By the end of Tuesday, more than 142 millimeters of rain had flooded Dubai in 24 hours. An average year sees 94.7 millimeters (3.73 inches) of rain at Dubai International Airport. Other parts of the country saw even more rainfall.

Meanwhile, intense flooding has also hit neighboring Oman in recent days. Authorities on Thursday brought the death toll from these storms to at least 21 deaths.

The UAE’s drainage systems were quickly overwhelmed on Tuesday, flooding neighborhoods, business districts and even portions of the 12-lane Sheikh Zayed Road highway that runs through Dubai.

The official WAM news agency called the rain a “historic meteorological event” that surpassed “anything documented since data collection began in 1949.”

In a message to the nation on Wednesday evening, Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi, said authorities would “work expeditiously to study the state of infrastructure across the UAE and to limit the damage caused.

On Thursday, people waded through oil-covered floodwaters to reach cars abandoned earlier, checking to see if their engines were still running. Tanker trucks equipped with vacuum cleaners have also started reaching some areas outside of downtown Dubai for the first time. Schools remain closed until next week.

Authorities provided no overall information on damage or injuries from the flooding, which killed at least one person.

However, at least one community saw the effects of rainfall worsen Thursday. Mudon, a real estate project by state-owned Dubai Properties, saw flooding in one neighborhood reach up to 1 meter. Civil protection officers tried to pump out the water, but it was difficult as people waded through floodwaters.

Mudon residents, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity given the United Arab Emirates’ strict laws governing freedom of expression, described scraping together the equivalent of nearly $2,000 to transport a truck – tanker to the community on Wednesday. They alleged that the developers did nothing to help before this, even though they called and sent emails. They also said a nearby sewage treatment plant had broken down, bringing more water into their homes.

“A lot of people were denying the seriousness of the situation,” one owner said as civil protection officials waded through the water, bringing bottled water on a raft.

Dubai Holding, a state-owned company that has Dubai Properties as a subsidiary, did not respond to questions. It’s part of a broader nexus that U.S. diplomats have called “Dubai Inc.” — all properties overseen by the ruling family of the city-state.

The flooding has sparked speculation that the UAE’s aggressive cloud-seeding campaign – flying small planes through clouds dispersing chemicals intended to make rain fall – may have could have contributed to the flood. But experts said the storm systems that produced the rain were predicted well in advance and cloud seeding alone would not have caused such flooding.

Scientists also say that climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme storms, droughts, floods and wildfires around the world. Last year, Dubai hosted the UN COP28 climate negotiations.

Abu Dhabi’s official newspaper, The National, described the heavy rains in an editorial on Thursday as a warning to countries in the Persian Gulf region to “protect their future from climate change.”

“The scale of this task is more difficult than it appears at first glance, because such changes involve modifying the urban environment of a region which, since it was inhabited, has only known heat and sand,” the newspaper said. .