UAE reports illness linked to contaminated water after floods

A small number of people in the United Arab Emirates have shown symptoms associated with contaminated water after heavy rains and floods, the health ministry said.

The statement, carried by the state news agency late on Wednesday, did not say exactly how many people had been affected or what exactly they were treated for.

There have been "a very limited number of cases that showed some symptoms of being affected by the mixed water" and they received hospital treatment, the ministry said.

It did not say what the water had been contaminated with.

The UAE was hit by record rains on April 16 that brought parts of the Gulf country to a standstill, heavily flooding some neighbourhoods, including in Dubai and northern cities.

Four people died in the floods.

Three workers from the Philippines died in heavy flooding in the United Arab Emirates.

Two women suffocated inside their vehicle during the flooding and one man died when his vehicle fell into a sinkhole, the Philippines' Department of Migrant Workers said.

Their deaths bring the toll to at least four after a 70-year-old man was swept away in his vehicle in Ras Al-Khaimah, another of the oil-rich Gulf state's seven emirates.