CAIRO - Five Egyptian ports on the Red Sea were closed Wednesday due to a mixture of sandstorms, heavy rain and high winds as four passengers were killed and dozens injured in road accidents blamed on bad weather. "The wind speed exceeded 30 knots per hour as the rising tides were extremely high leading to the closure of five Red Sea ports," said Mamdouh Derraz, the head of the Red Sea Ports Authority. The closed ports are Adabiyah and Sokhnah for cargo, Port Tawfik for passengers and Zeitiyat and Attakah for fish transfer. He added that the five ports would be open for some short time during the coming 48 hours. "We received a report from the Meteorological Authority that the weather will be turbulent until Friday night," Derraz said. Sandstorms, rain and wind have battered swathes of Egypt Wednesday with southern and eastern areas among the worst hit. In a wintry weather forecast, Egypt is witnessing a foggy atmosphere with Upper Egypt and coastal cities are experiencing heavy rainfall. The Meteorological Authority has announced that Egypt would experience very cold weather with heavy rains until Friday afternoon. The temperature dropped by three to four degrees Celsius as Cairo streets were at standstill because of the muddy and wet conditions. Meanwhile, security officials said that the bad weather led to the death of four people and 35 people injured in car crashes on three main highways near Cairo. "Three people were killed on the Oasis-Cairo Highway in the October 6th Governorate as 18 others were injured when four cars piled up," a security official said. In Assiut in southern Egypt, a microbus crashed head-on in a palm tree killing one and injuring nine others on Assiut-Cairo Road as five electricity columns fell, cutting telephone cables and causing blackout in many areas. Bad weather two weeks ago forced the closure of ten ports and resulted in the death of more than 30 people in road crashes and building collapses. Minister of Social Solidarity Ali el-Mesilhi said Wednesday his ministry had taken all measures to tackle consequences of heavy rainfall and bad weather through distress centres setup across the nation. "The Ministry has earmarked LE40 million to help families displaced due to the bad weather," el-Mesilhi added. He said that among their schemes to confront the weather related problems, there would be training courses for citizens to behave at the time of storms and torrential rains. "The weather is expected to gradually improve on Friday with temperatures set to reach 22 degrees Celsius," read a statement by the Meteorological Authority Wednesday.
