The heavy showers falling over Riyadh, which started on Sunday and continued Monday morning, resulted in 103 road accidents and nine injuries, including seven students at Princess Nora bint Abdulrahman University.

Riyadh traffic police reported 102 road accidents since Sunday, and a few injured, but no deaths.

According to Hassan Al-Hassan, director of the traffic department in Riyadh, his office received 5,345 telephone calls from drivers seeking assistance.

Besides advising them over the phones, the police were able to visit 321 sites where vehicles were stalled and helped them clear from the site.

The traffic department also said that police offered 409 special services to the drivers and to others who were affected by the rains, while over twenty areas in the capital where water logged due to the heavy downpour.

The authorities cleared the stagnant water at exit 27 and exit nine underpasses, opening the passage for regular traffic, in a quick and effective way, the traffic official said.

A team of professionals comprising the Ar-Riyadh Development Authority (ADA), municipality, civil defense and the Saudi Red Crescent Authority were deployed in the field to attend to any emergencies during the heavy showers.

Meanwhile, seven female students from the Princess Nora bint Abdulrahman University were injured Monday morning in a rain-related incident.

Ahmed Al-Anzi, official spokesman of the Saudi Red Crescent Authority in Riyadh said that the students were injured near the university as their minibus collided with an electricity pole.

He added that their operation room received a call in the morning informing about the accident, which happened in front of the university’s Gate No. 5. Three teams and an ambulatory band scrambled immediately to respond the call, Al-Anzi said.

Out of the seven students, two girls sustained medium injuries and the rest of them only light wounds, he said.

All of them were rushed to King Saud Medical City (Shumaisi), Saudi German hospital and Dallah hospital.

In what seemed to some like apocalyptic scenes out of a movie, trees were seen fallen on the King Fahd Road, at the intersection between Turki bin Abdullah and King Fahd ring road and on Imam Abu Hanifa Road.

Following the heavy downpour, signal lights were down in several streets including Prince Bandar, Sheikh Jaber Al-Oud near cemetery, Makkah road intersection at Azizia, Fatima Zohra and Omar bin Abdul Aziz, Prince Abdul Mohsen with Zaid ibn Al-Khattab, Salah Al-Din Ayoubi, Ibn Hazm and Dhahran street at Salahuddin Ayoubi intersection.

The heavy rain heralded the onset of chilly winter in the capital with a dip in the mercury and a nip in the air, as temperatures nose dived to below 25 degrees Celsius, compared to the 30 degrees above zero before it started raining on Sunday. Announcing the new low temperatures, Riyadh residents were seen in woolen cloths on Sunday night.