A rare downpour of rain left flood waters among palm trees and sand dunes in the Sahara desert, drenching some of its driest regions with more water than they have seen in decades.

The Moroccan government, according to a report by the Associated Press, said two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas that see less than 250 millimetres (10 inches) annually.

It added that water gushing through the sands and oases left more than 20 dead in Morocco and Algeria and damaged farmers’ harvests, forcing the government to allocate emergency relief funds.

The international media outlet added that an area known as Tata was the hardest hit by the historic weather event, with another village, Tagounite, recording more than 100 millimetres (3.9 inches) of rain in a 24-hour period.

The storms left striking images of water gushing through the Saharan sands amid castles and desert flora. NASA satellites showed water rushing in to fill Lake Iriqui, a famous lake bed between Zagora and Tata that had been dry for 50 years, the AP report said.

“It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time,” Houssine Youabeb of Morocco’s General Directorate of Meteorology is quoted saying.

Meteorologists believe that rains such as these could change the course of the region’s weather in months and years to come as the air retains more moisture, causing more evaporation and drawing more storms, Youabeb said.