Search for survivors continues as Jordan flash flood toll hits 21
13 OF THE DEAD AND 26 OF THE INJURED IN THE INCIDENT WERE MIDDLE SCHOOL CHILDREN
■
The death toll from flash floods near Jordan’s shore of the Dead Sea rose to 21 yesterday, in what Civil Defence officials said was one of the deadliest incidents in the kingdom involving schoolchildren.
The search for survivors continued after daybreak, with helicopters and teams with sniffer dogs scouring the rocky slopes near the Dead Sea in the Jordan Valley.
The body of a 12-year-old girl was found early yesterday and several more people were still feared missing, said the director general of the Civil Defence, Mustafa Al Basaiah.
Thirteen of the dead and 26 of about three dozen people wounded in Thursday’s flash floods were middle school children, officials said. They said three of those killed, including two students, were Iraqis living in Amman.
The incident began early Thursday afternoon when 37 students from an Amman private school, along with seven adult chaperones, as well as other visitors were taking a break at hot springs several kilometres from the Dead Sea shores. Sudden heavy rains sent flash floods surging towards them from higher ground, sweeping them away, some as far as the Dead Sea, officials said.
A complex rescue operation involving helicopters, divers, sniffer dogs and hundreds of ■ UAE President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan yesterday offered his condolences to King Abdullah II of Jordan and to the families of the victims of floods in the Dead Sea area on Thursday. Similar cables were sent to the Jordanian King by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. searchers continued into the night Thursday and resumed yesterday. The Israeli regime’s military said it also dispatched a rescue team at the request of the Jordanian government.
Brig Gen Farid Al Sharaa, a Civil Defence spokesman, said yesterday that the flooding was one of the deadliest incidents in recent memory involving schoolchildren.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II cancelled a planned working visit to Bahrain, initially scheduled for yesterday. He was to have been the keynote speaker at a security conference. In a message on his Twitter account, the monarch said that “the pain of each father, mother and family is my pain.” He also expressed anger towards those who he said “failed to take measures that could have prevented this painful incident,” but stopped short of assigning specific blame.
The king ordered the Jordanian flag at the palace’s main entrance to fly at half-staff for three days in mourning for the victims of the flood.
The UN secretary and several regional sent condolences. general leaders