Thursday, April 19, 2007

Flash flood in Fez


A flooded riad in Fez

Apologies for the lack of posts in the last two days, but we were hit by a couple of unusual circumstances. Firstly. when we came to the office on Wednesday we discovered that we had neither phone nor internet connection. As there had been extremely heavy rain, we assumed that the problem was "local". How wrong we were. There was no rain damage, but in the night thieves had dug up a stretch of paving stones in the Medina and stolen several metres of the main cable infrastructure. Our entire are was cut off.

Then, on Thursday, a flash flood hit the Medina. A massive amount of water fell in one hour, turning the streets of the Medina into a river. I was seated at Thami's Restaurant and watched in amazement as the talaa Sghira turned into a river. Not some little stream, but a torrent, cascading over the cobbles, sweeping everything before it. At the peak of the storm, the street was impassible, with water more than ankle high, flowing at thirty or forty kph! It was the one day I did not have a camera.

So, for the cleanest streets in Africa... Fez after a storm.

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