Ahram online: Egypt’s government needs to anticipate and prepare for crises before they occur in order to prevent loss of life, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi told the cabinet at an urgent meeting on Monday, a day after severe weather-related incidents claimed five lives in Alexandria.
Heavy rain and stormy weather hit Egypt on Sunday, causing minor flooding and other damage in many parts of the country. Alexandria, on the country’s Mediterranean coast, was badly hit.
Alaa Youssef, the presidency’s spokesperson, said that during the cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail submitted a report on his visit to Alexandria on Sunday.
Ismail’s report stated that “unprecedented” rain which fell for nine continuous hours resulted in the flooding of many of Alexandria’s streets.
The governor of Alexandria, Hani El-Mesery, resigned on Sunday.
Ismail had announced on Sunday that the cabinet would allocate LE75 ($9.7 million) to upgrade Alexandria’s ageing rain drainage system.
The report added that the 3.2 million cubic metres of rain that fell on Sunday is six times the amount that usually falls over a period of 24 hours in Alexandria at this time of the year.
According to Youssef, El-Sisi stressed the importance of carrying out periodic maintenance of sewage and drainage systems to avoid such disasters, as well as the importance of developing plans to improve the current systems.
Alexandria witnesses flash floods periodically. Last year, floods wreaked havoc on the city for several days.
The cabinet also discussed other topics, including a cooperation between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology aimed at improving the educational system and services provided to students, and the latest measures taken to adjust prices of commodities such as food and medicine to ensure their availability to all Egyptian citizens at a fair price.
