Fire guts 3 caravans; dusty winds to continue

Ehab Atta, Emad Al Deen Khalil, Staff Reporters

The teams of Dubai Civil Defence were able to extinguish a fire that broke out on Saturday afternoon in 3 caravans in a building under construction on Sheikh Zayed Road behind the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

An official source at the Civil Defence in Dubai, said that the operations room was alerted about the fire at 1:24 pm on Saturday. It was indicated that a building under construction caught fire. The firefighting teams immediately rushed from Al Etihad Civil Defence Centre to the scene,. They controlled the fire and prevented its spread to the entire building. The official also confirmed that the fire resulted in no casualties, and caused limited material damage and the burning of three caravans.

Meanwhile, in separate development the National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) predicted that the southwesterly dust stirring winds would continue to prevail the country on Sunday especially in the morning, as weather conditions may improve from Monday.

“An extension of a surface low pressure over most areas of the country, accompanied with an extension of a weak upper-air trough has affected the country on Saturday,” the NCM said.

The pressure distribution led to the acceleration of the southwesterly wind on the country, which stirred dust and sand over various parts leading to a horizontal visibilty that reached 1,400 m in Suwaihan and more than 2,000 m meters on the rest of the areas during the day.

The NCM has also expected that the weather today and tomorrow will be fair to partly cloudy and hazy at times over some areas. The winds will be light to moderate, southeasterly to southwesterly, becoming northwesterly and northeasterly, freshening at times causing blowing dust and sand during daytime, with a speed of 20–30km/hr, reaching 42km/hr at times. The sea will be slight to moderate in the Arabian Gulf and in the Oman Sea.

The Centre further called on drivers to exercise caution on the roads warning of the low horizontal vision. It also appealed to those suffering from asthma to avoid exposure to dust and stay away from them as much as possible.