there's no excuse for this

People in Oman have obviously seen the effects of the latest rains to land on Muscat for 2 or 3 days since last Thursday. We've heard of so many tragedies, but this one the tragedies where you begin to ask yourself 'what have we done to deserve such a whoop ass?'

For those who went out in the rain as far as the Shangri La series of hotels on the way to the Al Bustan Palace Hotel to enjoy their bit of rain. Good on you. You were lucky enough to come back in one piece.

For those who lost a relative in this tragedy, I grieve beside you with all my heart and soul.

There was a news article that was printed just yesterday in the Shabiba Arabic newspaper about the ROP (Royal Oman Police) bringing out a body of an 8 year old child who was playing in the rain with his fellow mates and all of a sudden a sewage hole gulped him up in front of them. After hours of search, they finally found him between life and death and on the way to hospital - he passed away.

So for you all fools who played around in the rain thinking that all you'll ever get is a cold, keep doing that. Maybe, one day, you just might end up a dead body, too.

It was crazy when it rained here. And what was worse were still going along with their business. So what happened? Evidently, the entire Qurum commercial area was flooded with many businesses having water passing into their shops/malls on the ground floor - especially restaurants and cafe's.

It wasn't the matter of just pouring rain and a little wind with it. It was gushing down telling everyone to go home. That's the message that was later translated. Unfortunately, people who knew of the translated message either ignored it, or faced being flooded and entrapped in their automobile while being drifted when regret holds no price to take you out of the outcome you became blind to.

Kay shows some of the pictures that she managed to get from her friend on her blog and here are some I found on the 'net where a foreign correspondent reported how the situation was in Al Wadi Al Kabir commercial district.

If this has ever taught us anything, is that we need a re-restructure of our whole roads system from A-Z because the way it is now isn't working at all. And don't say that it would be a total waste of time and money otherwise I just might end up kicking your behind so far up [censored for so many obvious reasons] and start talking about how many projects in Oman end up being embezzled by the people in authority for personal reasons leaving the nationals/citizens/residents with the crappy material and projects that were not worth getting worked up about.

The thing that's most irritating about Oman, folks, is that nothing is done unless in four situations; one would be there would a Royal Decree issued by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos - The Sultan of Oman; two would be if there was a big massive foreign investment from outside into the project (and when I say 'foreign', I mean GCC national big shots); three if there were many deaths happening or a clog in the traffic system such as what happened when they finally decided to make a bridge one the way to Barka because of a bad intersection location and so many people's lives lost or the latest building of the Express Highway that takes you straight from Al Qurum roundabout all the way to Al Naseem Park because of the massive increase of motor vehicle use on the roads; and four and this would be if it was done by using the great, the all powerful mighty use of W in Wasta.

So, how many more bodies do we need to lift from sewage holes, and creating wrong intersections, so that the people high high above us in their great mansions can hear us?

When?

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Update: A foreigner's body was found drifting off the wadi near the Sultan Qaboos University premises. It is said that the drifting waters pushed him all the way from Al Khuwair, which is about 40kms far.