JEDDAH: A member of the Jeddah Municipal Council has warned that surging water in the Jeddah sewage lake (Musk Lake) poses an imminent environmental threat to the city.

“Continuous rain would break the weak mud dam that prevents the lake from bursting, and trigger a health and environmental catastrophe,” said Bassam Akhdar, a member of the municipal council.

“The lake covers an area of 3 million sq. meters and holds more than 10 million liters of sewage,” said Akhdar who visited the lake to see arrangements made by the municipality and Civil Defense to evacuate residents in the immediate vicinity. “I did not see any rescue team or anyone else except several worried local residents looking at the rising water,” he said.

“A sewage lake of this size just 15 km from a metropolitan city should be fortified with dams stronger than an ordinary mud wall,” he added.

Akhdar said a recent report prepared by the Special Committee for Dams at the Ministry of Water underscored the need to surround the lake with a concrete wall to avert a breach. “Civil Defense and other related departments should be prepared to cope with the situation in case the mud wall collapses. The Municipal Council has stressed several times the need to set up lookouts close to the lake when it rains,” he added.

Akhdar also rejected the idea of connecting the lake with the sea as an immediate solution, expressing fear this would help spread diseases and pollution in residential districts along the 25 km canal.

Meanwhile, Civil Defense authorities have said they are prepared to face any situation following heavy rains in Jeddah. Maj. Gen. Adel Zamzami, director of Civil Defense in the Makkah region, said 50 divers and three helicopters are ready to deal with any emergency around the lake.

Maj. Abdul Aziz Al-Zahrani, head of the Civil Protection Department at the Civil Defense, said three rescue teams have been deployed near the lake and six patrolling teams are on the lookout for danger.

Heavy rains in other parts of the Kingdom — including Riyadh, Qassim, Tabuk, Asir, Jizan, Madinah, Najran and Hail — during the past two days have caused deaths, traffic jams and, in some areas, power cuts.

Hundreds of children at the Al-Nabwan Primary School in Dawadmi were saved when the school principal sent the children to a safe location on Wednesday morning after receiving a report that a flash flood was heading toward the school. The school was inundated half an hour after the evacuation causing some buildings to collapse.

Civil Defense teams rescued seven families trapped in floods on Thursday outside the town of Mudhnib in Qassim province. In Buraidah, several families were evacuated from their homes and brought to schools situated on higher altitude.

In the southern province of Asir, the body of a young man was recovered from a flooded area by a rescue team. He was swept away by flash floods while crossing a ravine.

In another incident, a young man and his sister drowned in Wadi Al-Qulaiba in Tabuk. According to witnesses, the sister died while attempting to save her brother who was being swept away by floodwaters.

Thirty-four people stranded by floods were rescued in the village of Sajer. A four-year-old shepherd’s daughter drowned in Al-Jamiyah village in Afif on Wednesday. The body was retrieved the next day.

In yet another incident, a 60-year-old man died after falling into a rainwater pool in Qunfudah on Thursday.

Several parts of the Jeddah-Jizan road had also, reportedly, become unsafe due to flooding on Thursday.

Special Civil Defense teams are patrolling deserts in the eastern side of Riyadh where thousands of people go for picnicking, particularly on the weekends.

In Taima, 46 families were evacuated from areas prone to flooding. In Jizan, three people were rescued from a van that was caught in waters.

The Kingdom’s coast guards are also on the lookout for fishermen at sea who could be in trouble. Waves have risen about two meters in coastal areas following rains accompanied by strong winds.