Unprecedented rain caused 4 deaths and 500 scorpion stings

Officials said that four people died in southern Egypt, in recent days, due to torrential rains unheard of for 11 years, which caused an increase in scorpion stings.

“It has been 11 years since we recorded such an amount of rain, and this is the result of global climate change,” Khaled Qassem, a local official at the Ministry of Local Development, said on Tuesday.

In “55 minutes” from Friday evening to Saturday, “eight million cubic meters of water” fell on Aswan Governorate, 650 kilometers south of Cairo, Governor Ashraf Attia explained on state television.

The Health Ministry said four people died when their homes collapsed due to rain and hailstones. A total of 106 houses were razed and more than 300 were partially damaged, according to Governor Attia.

In addition to cutting off water and electricity in some areas, the rains caused the displacement of many scorpions and “stung more than 500 people,” according to what the governorate announced on its Facebook page.

In comments, residents said they were “surrounded by scorpions and snakes”, saying they were concerned for “children and the elderly”.

The Ministry of Health said that there are four or five species of scorpions in the Egyptian desert, and their stings can cause a high fever, but no deaths have been recorded due to a scorpion sting.

Already in the winter of 2020, rains and floods have killed about twenty people in Egypt.

These bad weather occurred in Egypt – the country that will host COP27 on climate change in 2022 – while COP 26 submitted a text considered tepid, as it does not guarantee that warming is contained to 1.5°C and does not respond to requests. For help from poor countries.