Rare hail stuns tourists in all-year-round resort
Tourists at the Egyptian beach resort city of Hurghada were caught off guard by a rare snowstorm which pelted beachgoers with hail at the start of the new year.
Videos show people rushing to the safety of their hotels as massive hail stones fell from the sky on Saturday. Some of the stones – which reportedly broke windows and roofs – appeared to be the size of quail eggs.
Heavy hail in Egyptian #Hurghada. Roads of the resort town are covered with #snow and #hail. In the social networks, #eyewitnesses wrote that the #hailstones were the size of a quail's egg. The precipitation damaged cars and windows.#GlobalCrisis#ClimateCrisis#ClimateChangepic.twitter.com/8Tn1wCgFQY
— Global Crisis (@_GlobalCrisis_) January 1, 2022
تساقط تلج بطريقة غريبه في الغردقه pic.twitter.com/xeVSG24Pdq
— A S H (@Ash_Baraka) January 1, 2022
Snowfall in Egypt hurghada: Climate Action Crisis.The Egyptian city of Hurghada, in the Red Sea, witnessed heavy rain with hail, accompanied by lightning and thunder, while thick clouds covered the sky of the tourist city. pic.twitter.com/JpCPE7jEBe
— worldnews24u (@worldnews24u) January 2, 2022
In one video, tourists in beachwear are seen trying to protect themselves from the storm with only their towels, as one Russian woman is heard saying, “These poor people are running from the beach. The hail must have caught them on the beach.”
А это Хургада, и вот такой подарок прилетел туристам на Новый год с неба. Огромные градины побили стёкла и крыши отеля Siva Grand Beach и доставили много неприятных минут отдыхающим на пляже. pic.twitter.com/q4oN7ePy80
— rc_nord08 (@RNord08) January 1, 2022
Schools in the area were ordered to close on Sunday due to the storm, while Minister of Local Development Mahmoud Shaarawy advised people to stay away from potentially dangerous objects such as trees and lamp posts.
“Hurghada [looks like] Moscow,” one Egyptian woman reacted on social media, while another person joked that Russian tourists spending New Year’s in the city probably “felt at home.”
Hurghada is popular with Russian tourists, with dozens of charter flights from Russia landing at the Red Sea resort every day. Flights were resumed in November after a six-year suspension following a 2015 terrorist attack targeting a Russian passenger plane travelling from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. Regular flights between Russia and Egypt were resumed in August of last year.
