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PP RUEHDE RUEHDH RUEHDIR RUEHROV
DE RUEHJI #0460/01 3351933
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 011933Z DEC 09
FM AMCONSUL JEDDAH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1630
INFO RUEHRH/AMEMBASSY RIYADH PRIORITY 8611
RUEHDH/AMCONSUL DHAHRAN PRIORITY 0179
RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEHPH/CDC ATLANTA GA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JEDDAH 000460 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ARP, NEA/PPD, SE/S-O, CA/OCS/ACS-NEA; 
DEPARTMENT PLS PASS TO US GEOLOGICAL SERVICE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/01/2019 
TAGS: AEMR ASEC CASC ECON KPAO PGOV SA SENV
SUBJECT: LATEST ON JEDDAH FLOOD -- COMPENSATION, 
INVESTIGATION, AND HOPING THE DAM HOLDS 
 
REF: A. JEDDAH 0457 
     ¶B. JEDDAH 0456 
 
JEDDAH 00000460  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: Consul General Martin R. Quinn for reasons 1.4 (b) and ( 
d) 
 
¶1. (C)  SUMMARY. In an announcement that SMSed its way around 
Jeddah late yesterday evening, King Abdullah ordered 
immediate payment of SR 1 million (USD 267,000) to the 
surviving families of each victim of last Wednesday's 
catastrophic flood. The royal decree created a high-level 
commission to investigate the causes of the disaster, punish 
those who were negligent, and assess preventive measures as 
city clean-up work proceeds at an impressive pace.  The 
King's actions were lead headlines in most papers, the flood 
story consuming the first seven pages of the Arabic daily 
Okaz. The Saudi Government, primarily through Mecca Governor 
Khalid Al Faisal, has been pro-active in what appears to have 
been a successful effort to calm public fears stirred 
yesterday (Monday) afternoon by a report that leaks in the 
Misk Lake dam might cause raw sewage water to spill through 
the city of Jeddah -- especially if more rain arrives over 
the local Thursday-Friday weekend.  Simultaneously, the 
political "blame game" is ratcheting up in an 
uncharacteristically public manner with increasingly 
outspoken criticism of officials in the Jeddah Municipality, 
beginning with the mayor.  END SUMMARY. 
 
 
Royal compensation with fingers pointing ... 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
 
¶2. (C) News of King Abdullah's announcement of a generous 
compensation package of SAR 1 million ($267,000) for the 
families of persons who perished in the Wednesday Flood made 
its way around Jeddah dinner tables at around 10 p.m. 
yesterday evening, amid expectation that the King would deal 
sternly with those identified as responsible for the 
disaster. Stories are circulating about fraudulent 
contractors making millions in profits on 
incompetently-installed storm drainage systems in which 
manhole covers with no connecting pipe work were placed 
around the city to demonstrate that the chronic drainage 
problem had been "fixed." Fingers point to greedy contractors 
and officials who approved the contracts, primarily the 
Jeddah Municipality, including the mayor himself, successful 
businessman Engineer Adel Faqih.  Outraged Jeddah residents 
feel that while the mayor has articulated his vision of the 
city in a recently unveiled 20-year development plan, he has 
been in office long enough to have fixed "the mess of 
corruption" he inherited and thus should be sacked.  Others 
feel that those around the mayor, the deputies and 
underlings, are more to blame.  The most cynical perspective 
is that the mayor himself will be spared, but authorities 
"will find some poor guy to take the fall."  One contact 
assumes that now the King's attention has been engaged the 
much-needed repairs to Jeddah's infrastructure will be 
"fast-tracked," costing something like $3 billion -- "or 3 
times what it would normally cost." The businessman smiled, 
"That's just the way it always works here." 
 
 
 
Royal decree promises punishment 
-------------------------------- 
 
 
¶3. (U) The salient language of the royal decree, loosely 
translated, reads as follows: 
 
 
"The disaster was not a result of extraordinary or 
out-of-control hurricanes or floods as we know them.  It was 
the result of a rainstorm that cannot be described as 
disastrous....  Many countries around the world have a 
similar rainfall amount (3 inches) almost everyday without 
causing them such losses and damages as we have seen in the 
Jeddah Governorate, including countries with fewer resources 
than the Kingdom.... As we bear responsibility before Allah 
to keep everybody in the country secure and safe, it is our 
 
JEDDAH 00000460  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
duty to firmly face this issue and find out those 
responsible, either government departments or individuals 
contributing to this disaster, and firmly punish them for 
coming short of their duty." 
 
 
Investigation to be led by princes 
---------------------------------- 
 
 
¶4. (C) As the number of casualties continues to rise, citizen 
outrage about the city's lack of preparation for the flood 
grows.  One human rights group has already threatened a 
lawsuit on behalf of the families of flood victims.  Although 
street protests are banned, a Facebook page entitled "Popular 
Campaign to Save the City of Jeddah" has become a popular 
conduit for publicly expressing anger at local officials for 
failing to provide proper sewage and drainage infrastructure. 
 Some angry citizens, using their real names, posted links to 
official announcements of multimillion-dollar spending plans 
to update Jeddah's infrastructure.  With some sources 
indicating that the final number of flood victims may be 
several times more than the 106 officially reported, Jeddawis 
are accusing SAG officials, princes included, of poor 
planning at the least and corruption over infrastructure 
spending at the worst. 
 
¶5. (C) Mecca Governor Prince Khalid Al Faisal and Jeddah 
Governor Prince Mishal bin Majed have been named to head the 
investigation commission, which promises to mount a "massive 
inquiry" assessing personal and property losses. How deeply 
the inquiry probes will likely depend on the level of 
continued public outrage. Almost everyone we have spoken to 
in Jeddah expects that the fatality rate is far greater than 
the figures publicly disclosed.  Jeddah's major fruit 
importer, Mohammed Sharbatly (protect), in what is probably a 
high estimate, said the actual death toll could rise to 600. 
(Sharbatly owns a "residential village" near Misk Lake.) 
Others expect the final tally to be 200-300. 
 
 
Temporary panic over Misk Lake overflow 
--------------------------------------- 
 
 
¶6. (SBU) Alarms raced around the Saudi and expatriate 
communities Monday afternoon that Misk Lake, consisting of 
mostly unprocessed sewage held in place by an earthen dam, 
was leaking and might be in danger of overflowing due to the 
rising water level, said to be four meters from the top. 
Situated in a dry river bed (or wadi), the lake, 10 meters 
deep, 125 meters above sea level, contains 50 million cubic 
meters of sewage water.  The water is contained by three 
18-meter-wide sand barriers which total 1.7 km in length.  On 
a daily basis, Misk Lake receives the contents of 1,400 
tanker trucks dumping raw sewage and is located about 40 km 
east of the Jeddah city center near Gwaiza, the neighborhood 
hardest hit by the flood -- and where the clean-up, removal 
of wrecked vehicles, and retrieval of bodies is ongoing. The 
"panic" was prompted by the Saudi Civil Defense decision to 
warn residents near the dam to evacuate their homes after 
leaking was detected in a secondary support lake.  Fears were 
eased later in the day after a press conference by Prince 
Khalid, but not before some foreign consulates had warned 
their citizens to prepare to evacuate.  Civil Defense 
officials later insisted that the dam was safe, the water is 
dropping, and there is "no imminent danger of the lake 
flooding the eastern districts of Jeddah." The US Consulate 
received a single call from an American living near the 
affected area who had heard of the evacuation and recalled 
U.S. Geological Service experts examining the Misk Lake dam 
(visible on Google Earth) several years ago and expressing 
the opinion at the time that if the dam ever broke, Palestine 
Street and half of Jeddah "would be ankle-deep in raw 
sewage." 
 
 
... "not sure we want a mayor who is surprised" 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
 
 
JEDDAH 00000460  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶7. (C) COMMENT: In a more open display of public ire than is 
typical in Saudi Arabia, local media are luxuriating in 
coverage of the flood and its aftermath -- particularly now 
that the Hajj has been successfully concluded. Public anger 
is rising over lives and property lost due to perceived 
official negligence and preventable error. In a Saudi Radio 
English language interview Tuesday afternoon Al Watan 
columnist Abdullah Al Alami predicted that "heads will roll, 
not only from recent officials but also from the older ones." 
 Alami went on to castigate the Jeddah mayor in vividly 
uncompromising terms: "The mayor of Jeddah said he was 
surprised by what happened.  I'm not sure we want a mayor who 
is surprised.  We want a mayor who surprises us with his 
accomplishments."  Other Jeddawis are circulating on the 
internet a clever mockery of the Jeddah Municipality's logo, 
spelling out the word in Arabic "al-khiyana" (treason, 
treachery, perfidy) in place of "al-imana" (municipality). 
While the day of reckoning for Jeddah city officials may be 
fast approaching, many eyes are focused on the official 
weather forecast (cloudy Wednesday with chance of showers 
Thursday or Friday) and whether more rain will bring more 
misery to the residents of Jeddah.  END COMMENT. 
 
 
 
 
QUINN