One dead, one missing after floods sweep away cement mixer truck in Egypt
Rescue teams were searching for a missing person in Egypt's South Sinai after a cement mixer truck was swept away in Wadi Watir on Tuesday evening. Authorities said one of the three people aboard died and another was injured.
Mariam Al Mansoori
Search continues as roads reopen
Heavy rain unleashed torrents through the mountainous valley near the coastal city of Nuweiba. South Sinai Governor Ismail Kamal said the injured person was being treated in a hospital while crews continued looking for the missing person.
Authorities closed roads affected by the flooding so emergency crews could remove mud, rocks and other debris. By Wednesday, all those roads were open and traffic was back to normal, Kamal said, though cleanup work was still underway.
The governor reported no further casualties. He said authorities remained on alert, monitoring the weather and working to protect residents and infrastructure.
Nuweiba and valleys along the northern Gulf of Aqaba received moderate to heavy rain, including Wadi Watir, Wadi Al Tarabin and Wadi Al Mahash. Officials warned drivers to stay away from flood channels and low-lying areas and not attempt to cross flooded roads.
Forecasts and water retained by flood defenses
Ahead of the rainfall, Egypt's Flood Forecasting Center issued forecasts for October 24-26, 2026, warning of rain of varying intensity in parts of South Sinai and the Red Sea governorate. The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation said the forecasts supported proactive measures to address flash floods, according to a ministry statement reported by El Balad News on October 28.
The ministry estimated that flood-protection and water-harvesting facilities across the two governorates retained about 12.4 million cubic meters of water during the wave. That included about 10 million cubic meters at the Wadi Al Zalga and Ghulaim dams and Lake Zalga in South Sinai, and about 2.4 million cubic meters at facilities in Shalateen and Sheikh Shazly in the Red Sea governorate.
In a separate account of local facilities reported by El Balad News, South Sinai water resources director-general Ahmed El-Koumi said Nuweiba's system had a total storage capacity of about 32.9 million cubic meters. Built at a total cost of about 660 million Egyptian pounds, it includes 14 dams, six artificial lakes, three Irish crossings, 20 barriers and 10 stilling basins.
El-Koumi also put the volume retained by the Wadi Al Zalga and Ghulaim dams and Lake Zalga during the late-October wave at about 10 million cubic meters. He said Taba's facilities retained another 600,000 cubic meters, bringing the combined total for Nuweiba and Taba to about 10.6 million cubic meters.
Taba's system cost about 185 million Egyptian pounds, according to El-Koumi. It consists of one dam, 50 barriers, 16 industrial channels, eight lakes and stilling basins, and three Irish crossings.
Earlier floods and the region's exposure
A 2022 study by El-Rawy, Elsadek and De Smedt in the journal Water places southern Sinai's mountain ranges in a "very high" flash-flood susceptibility zone. Covering about 8,000 square kilometers, or 15% of Sinai, the zone encompasses six major basins, including wadis El-Aawag, Feiran and Kid and the upstream sub-basins of wadis Dahab and Watir.
For Wadi Watir, the study cites research by Cools et al. documenting 20 significant rainfall events over a 30-year period identified as 1979-2010. Nine produced flash floods. Some severely damaged the Nuweiba-Taba coastal road, washing away entire sections.
The Water study also records six deaths and dozens of injuries from flooding in Wadi El-Arish on January 17-18, 2010. That disaster destroyed vital infrastructure and hundreds of homes.
A later disaster, the 2016 Egypt flood, affected Assiut, Red Sea, Sohag, South Sinai and Qena in late October and early November. According to Wikipedia's summary, at least 26 people died and 72 were injured.
