BEIRUT, (AFP) - Torrential rain wreaked havoc in Lebanon Thursday, flooding buildings in Beirut and other towns, cutting power and turning highways first into muddy streams and then into raging torrents.
"It's a disaster," proclaimed the country's most popular television station, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC), which blamed the authorities for the extensive damage caused by the storm, whose arrival was no surprise to weather forecasters.
The authorities could give no figures Thursday evening for the material damage, but said no casualties had been reported. They have set up an "emergency operations room" to assist victims of the flooding.
Water poured into homes, shops and official buildings in Beirut and its suburbs, and in the northern port city of Tripoli a hospital and mosque were also flooded, the official Tele-Liban reported.
Many rivers spilled over their banks, flooding nearby fields, the official ANI news agency said. A number of retaining walls were washed away.
However despite the rains, Beirut's airport continued to function.
Initial estimates late Thursday said between 70 and 90 centimeters (28 and 36 inches) of rain had fallen on Beirut in 24 hours.
Weather bulletins earlier in the day said 30-60 centimeters (12-24 inches) of snow fell on the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges in the worst storm the country has seen since 1992.
On Tuesday, day one of the storm, winds reached speeds of 90 kilometersmiles) an hour, the national weather service said.
Mountain roads were blocked by snow, with the road linking Beirut and Damascus impassable except for vehicles with special equipment, private transportation services reported.
Other countries in the region were also lashed by storms and rain.
Three truck drivers were killed in Jordan Thursday and a fourth injured when their oil tankers ploughed into each other in the east of the country as rain and sandstorms drastically reduced visibility, police said.
The accident caused an inferno that destroyed all three vehicles on the desert highway between Al-Azraq and Safawi, around 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Amman, police said in a statement carried by Petra news agency.
One of the casualities was an Iraqi truck driver, and the other two were a Jordanian driver and his mate. The injured man was also Jordanian.
Firefighters battled with the blaze for several hours before extinguishing the flames while rescue teams tended to the casualties.
Jordan has been swept by strong winds of up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) an hour over the past two days, bringing intermittent storms of rain mixed with sand.
West of Jordan, in the Palestinian territories, a state of emergency was in force, with civil defense officials warning residents to "exercise increased caution and care."
Even so, a truck slammed into electrical and telephone control boxes at the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, cutting off power and communications to the 90,000 people living there, they said.
Three people were slightly injured Wednesday in a road accident blamed on the storm, and Gaza City officials said drivers were being blinded by rain and gusts of sand.
Electricity was cut and roofs ripped off several homes in the Beach Camp refugee camp in Gaza City and the Rafah camp in south of the Strip.
Neighboring Israel had set up emergency units in anticipation of the most violent storm to hit it since 1992.
The wind ripped about 700 trees out of the soil and knocked over about a hundred electrical posts. Tens of thousands of homes lost electricity supplies for several hours and banana, avocado and flower fields were ruined.
In all, the storm caused about 11 million shekels (2.75 million dollars) in damage.
But the 100 kilometers (62 miles) an hour winds the Israeli weather service had forecast for Wednesday, to abate Thursday, did not occur. And Israel was spared flooding and subsequent evacuations.