The Only Way Is Essex stars Joey Essex and James Argent were left stranded on the streets of Dubai after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) experienced the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the desert nation.
On Tuesday more than a year and a half’s worth of rain was dumped onto the desert city-state in the span of mere hours.
Essex, 33, who was a contestant on Dancing On Ice in 2023, was caught up in the aftermath of the torrential rainfall and said the pair had “decided to hitchhike after hours of trying to get back home.”
On his Instagram story, the reality star posted a video of 36-year-old Argent – also known as Arg – standing next to a flooded road with his hand stuck out in front of him, as Essex said: “Hitchhiking, we have no choice.”
Essex also uploaded a clip of him walking along the street pavement, part of which had seemingly collapsed, as a car tried to make its way across a flooded road.
The caption said: “After hours of looking for a taxi and hitchhiking on the streets of Dubai.
“We have now decided to take the next step… operation survival.”
In the next video Essex was seen holding his shoes as he walked along the streets barefoot, with the water around his ankles.
The rainfall began late on Monday, soaking the sands and roadways of Dubai with some 0.79in of rain, according to meteorological data collected at Dubai International Airport.
The storms intensified at around 9am local time on Tuesday and continued throughout the day, dumping more rain and by the end of the day more than 5.59 inches of rainfall had soaked Dubai over the course of 24 hours.
Many roads in the UAE lack drainage given the lack of regular rainfall, which is unusual in the UAE, an arid, Arabian Peninsula nation, but occurs periodically during the cooler winter months.
Rain also fell in Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and separate heavy flooding has taken place in Oman in recent days.