Lebanon storm- flights, traffic disrupt
BEIRUT — One person died in Lebanon on Saturday as heavy winds and rain whipped across the country, also grounding flights and causing nationwide traffic jams in the first storm to hit the country after months of drought.
A 45-year-old woman was killed in the northern port city of Tripoli when a palm tree blown over by the wind struck her car as she was driving along the coastal road, police said.
In Beirut, four small planes parked at the international airport were flipped over and destroyed by the wind on Saturday morning, which topped 100 kilometers (60 miles) an hour, an airport official said.
Several flights were grounded as one flight arriving from Kuwait was forced to make a detour and land in neighboring Damascus due to the rough weather.
Waves along the Mediterranean coast reached five meters (16.5 feet) in height, an AFP photographer said, crashing over traffic that had come to a standstill in knee-high water on the seaside road in Beirut and other highways.
The winds also knocked down several billboards across the main coastal highway, many of which crashed into parked cars, but no injuries were reported.
And in the seaside town of Jbeil, north of Beirut, fishermen were struggling to keep their boats tied down as cafe and restaurant staff strove to salvage chairs and tables from flooded terraces.
The storm comes after a drought of nearly eight months which led to fires that ravaged forests and left farmers struggling to survive in a country envied regionally for its abundance of water resources.
Until Saturday's storm, Lebanon had had 51.2 millimeters (2.05 inches) of rain since September, drastically down from 214.8 millimeters during the same period last year, according to the national meteorology bureau.
