AMMAN: Flash floods killed 12 people in Jordan and forced nearly 4,000 tourists to flee the famed ancient desert city of Petra, emergency services said on Saturday.

Search teams were scouring valleys near the historic hill town of Madaba for a young girl who was still missing after Friday’s floods, civil defence spo­kesman Iyad Amru told state television.

Five people have already been confirmed dead in the area southwest of the capital Amman after torrential rains swept the south of the kingdom.

Government spokeswoman Jumana Ghneimat said authorities had found alive four Israeli tourists who had gone missing in the Wadi Rum desert in southern Jordan but were looking for two more.

Israel initially confirmed the report but in a later update a spokesman for the foreign ministry said that “all the Israelis in Jordan have contacted us. All of them were found”.

State television said the waters had reached as high as 13 feet in parts of Petra and the adjacent Wadi Musa desert.

It broadcast footage of tourists sheltering on high ground on both sides of the access road to Jordan’s biggest attr­action. The government spokeswoman said 3,762 tourists were evacuated.

The latest deaths come after October 25 flash floods in the Dead Sea region of the kingdom killed 21 people, most of them children on a school trip.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2018