Eid flash floods kill six in Oman, exposing risks of a wetter future

When the wadi rose, the water came faster than anyone in the car expected.

On the second day of Eid al-Fitr, a white SUV carrying 10 people eased toward a familiar crossing outside Barka, a coastal town in Oman’s Al Batinah South governorate. For most of the year, the channel beneath the bridge is a dusty scar in the landscape, part of a network of dry riverbeds, or wadis, that thread across northern Oman.

This time, the wadi was a churning brown torrent. Within minutes, witnesses said, the vehicle was picked up and rolled downstream. Rescue teams and bystanders formed chains, throwing ropes into the water. Seven people were pulled out alive. Three were later found dead.

The Barka tragedy was the most harrowing episode in a series of flash floods that swept northern and northeastern Oman from March 20 to 23, killing at least six people, washing away roads and vehicles and flooding homes from Muscat to the mountain towns of Ad Dakhiliyah. The deluge, driven by a powerful low-pressure system dubbed “Al-Musarrat,” is the latest sign that this desert country is confronting a new era of violent, short-lived storms.

A year’s rain in a day

Heavy rain began on March 20 as the low-pressure system deepened over the Arabian Peninsula. By the following day, thunderstorms were pounding the capital.

The National Committee for Emergency Management (NCEM) said on March 21 it had “activated the National Center for Emergency Management and relevant sectors in several governorates… as heavy rainfall is expected from the low pressure system ‘Al-Musarrat.’” The move put civil defense, health, utilities and transport agencies on heightened alert.

What followed was an episode of rainfall more typical of a tropical cyclone than a spring disturbance.

Meteorological reports indicate the interior town of Bahla in Ad Dakhiliyah governorate recorded about 153 millimeters of rain in a single day. Barka, where the Eid tragedy unfolded, saw around 137 millimeters. In Muscat’s Bausher district, gauges measured roughly 112 millimeters.

Much of Oman’s populated coastal plain normally receives 100 to 150 millimeters of rain in an entire year.

“This was the sort of 24-hour rainfall that, historically, you would expect only once in many years, and it was occurring simultaneously at multiple stations,” said one Gulf-based climate scientist, speaking generally about recent events in the region.

As wadis filled, runoff from the Hajar Mountains funneled into narrow channels that cross main roads and low-lying neighborhoods. In Muscat, streets and underpasses flooded. The Royal Oman Police temporarily closed the steep Amerat–Bawshar road as a precaution against landslides and raging flows below.

Six dead, dozens rescued

The brunt of the human toll fell on Al Batinah South governorate.

Civil defense authorities said the Barka vehicle, carrying 10 people including several expatriates from the Indian state of Kerala, was swept away as it tried to navigate a flooded crossing on March 22. Seven occupants survived with the help of rescuers. Three bodies were recovered later downstream.

Two of the dead were Keralite expatriates, according to Indian community reports. One more passenger was initially reported missing.

In a separate incident in nearby Al Maawil, another vehicle was “washed away by floodwaters,” killing both occupants, according to officials quoted in local disaster summaries. Other motorists were rescued from stranded or partially submerged cars in wadis and on urban roads across the affected region.

By March 23, authorities and local media were reporting at least six fatalities linked to the flooding, with search and rescue operations continuing as waters receded.

The Civil Defence and Ambulance Authority, which oversees fire, rescue and emergency medical response nationwide, deployed teams to multiple governorates. Images and video shared on Omani social media showed rescuers wading into fast-moving water and using ropes to pull people to safety.

A familiar hazard in a changing climate

For many outside the Gulf, deadly flooding in Oman can seem counterintuitive. The country is better known for its deserts, soaring summer temperatures and chronic water scarcity.

Yet Oman has a long record of devastating floods. Cyclone Gonu in 2007 killed around 50 people and caused billions of dollars in damage. Cyclones Phet in 2010 and Keila in 2011 also brought extreme rainfall and double-digit death tolls. More recently, heavy rains in February 2024 killed at least six people, and a multiday storm in April 2024 left at least 20 dead in Oman and four in the neighboring United Arab Emirates.

Scientists who studied the April 2024 event found that human-caused climate change had made its kind of heavy rainfall “much more likely” and significantly more intense than it would have been in a preindustrial climate. Warmer sea-surface temperatures in the Arabian Gulf and Arabian Sea allow storms to draw in more moisture, loading the atmosphere for extreme downpours.

No formal attribution study has yet been published on the March 2026 floods, but meteorologists say the pattern is similar: a strong upper-level disturbance over the region, a surface low-pressure system pulling in warm, humid air, and intense convection anchored over the Hajar Mountains and coastal plains.

What has changed in recent decades is not only the atmosphere but also what lies in the water’s path.

Around 80% of Oman’s population now lives on low-lying coastal and foothill land, much of it built on or near old wadi fans. Urban expansion in Muscat and the Al Batinah coast has paved natural drainage channels and pushed housing, shops and roads deeper into floodplains.

When storms arrive, wadis that appear bone-dry for most of the year can rise several meters in minutes. Drivers who misjudge the depth or speed of the water are often the first to get into trouble.

Prepared, but still exposed

Since Gonu, Omani authorities have invested heavily in disaster management and flood protection. NCEM now coordinates a nationwide network of 229 official shelters, and in December 2025 the government approved updates to the national emergency management plan, including sector-specific procedures for basic services.

The Civil Aviation Authority operates a National Multi-Hazard Early Warning Center, which monitors storms and issues alerts. The government has built a series of flood-protection dams near the capital and along the Al Batinah coast, including the Wadi al-Jifnain dam inaugurated in 2025, to blunt peak flows.

A separate flood-risk mapping project launched in 2024 is cataloging hazard zones across the country and dividing them into high-, medium- and low-risk classes, meant to guide future land-use and emergency planning.

Those measures likely prevented worse damage in March. But they did not keep every car off the wadis or every home out of the water’s reach.

“People see a dry channel most of the year, and they think it is a road,” said an Omani engineer who has worked on flood-control schemes. “Changing that mindset is as important as building dams.”

Officials have long urged residents not to cross wadis during storms. Enforcement remains difficult, particularly on holidays like Eid, when families venture to valleys and beaches and traffic is heavier than usual.

The March floods also hit at a moment when Oman’s emergency services were already under pressure. In the weeks before the storm, the country had been targeted by Iranian drone and missile strikes on ports and shipping lanes, killing civilians and heightening security concerns. On social media, some residents openly worried about “toxic rain” or the prospect of dealing with air raids and flash floods in the same month.

Who gets protected?

Beyond immediate rescue efforts, the floods have revived questions about whose lives and livelihoods are prioritized as Oman adapts to more erratic weather.

Flood-protection dams and upgraded drainage have been concentrated around Muscat and major coastal corridors that host the bulk of the population and economic activity. Farmers in interior valleys, where steep catchments can send walls of water crashing into orchards and date plantations, have called for more defenses to shield their lands.

Expatriate communities, who make up a large share of Oman’s workforce, often live in more affordable, flood-prone housing and may have limited access to Arabic-language warnings. The deaths of Keralite expatriates in Barka during Eid echoed earlier Gulf floods in which migrant workers were disproportionately affected.

Insurers and reinsurers, already grappling with losses from the 2024 storms, are watching closely. Heavier design storms can render older standards for culverts, bridges and drainage obsolete, forcing costly upgrades that will ultimately flow through to premiums and public budgets.

Rivers in waiting

A few days after the last showers faded in late March, the wadi outside Barka had returned to its more familiar state: a dry, stony corridor, tire tracks etched in the sand, children playing along the banks.

The only signs of the flood were scoured banks, twisted guardrails and the memory of the car that did not make it across.

For Oman, the March 2026 floods were far from the worst in its modern history. But their timing, intensity and location—once again striking the country’s most densely populated corridor—underscored a reality scientists and officials have been warning about for years.

In a warming climate, the wadis that shape life in northern Oman are no longer just seasonal curiosities. They are rivers in waiting. Whether the next surge claims more lives will depend not only on the path of the storms that form over the Arabian Peninsula, but on where and how people choose to build, drive and celebrate along their banks.