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Workers die from heat

Five laborers in the Gulf emirate of Dubai have died from sunstroke over the past week, police said yesterday, urging employers to grant their staff a three-hour break in the scorching midday sun. The five, whose nationalities were not given, died "due to the inhuman working conditions or failure on the part of the employers to provide adequate protection to their labourers from heat," Captain Khalid Said bin Hazim told the Khaleej Times. Captain Hazim, head of the Jebel Ali police station south of Dubai, called on employers to "improve working conditions for employees, particularly for those who work outdoors in the relentlessly hot sun ... by observing a break during peak heat hours, between midday and 3pm." Summer temperatures throughout the United Arab Emirates often hit 50 Celsius, while humidity levels regularly top 90 percent. Foreign workers make up around 80 percent of the 3 million population of the UAE, of which Dubai is a member.

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