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Cars drive in a flooded street following heavy rains in Dubai on April 17, 2024. Dubai, the Middle East's financial centre, has been paralysed by the torrential rain that caused floods across the UAE and Bahrain and left 18 dead in Oman on April 14 and 15. | AFP Photo

Dubai's giant highways were clogged by flooding and its major airport was in chaos as the Middle East financial centre remained gridlocked on Wednesday, a day after the heaviest rains on record.

Tailbacks snaked along waterlogged, six-lane expressways after up to 259.5 millimetres (10.2 inches) of rain, the most since records began 75 years ago, fell on the desert United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.