CAIRO — Rare torrential rains across the Middle East swept away homes, marooned resort towns and killed seven people Monday, including a British tourist, in what officials are calling the worst flooding in at least a decade.
The flooding along Egypt’s Red Sea coast, the border with Israel and in the south damaged the roads leading to the resorts in the Sinai desert and brought down telephone and power lines.
Israel temporarily closed its southern border crossings with Egypt and Jordan, while Jordanians were warned off the streets after nearly a dozen accidents in one area.
Rains of this magnitude, which began Sunday night, are rare in this arid region and where heavy precipitation can result in deadly flash floods.
A British tourist sailing down the Nile near the southern Egyptian city of Aswan died when his sailboat capsized in heavy winds. The heavy rains also washed away a dozen mud-brick homes in southern Egypt and killed two women there. Scores of families in a village in Aswan slept overnight outdoors after their homes were destroyed.
