A spectacular fire that engulfed a luxury Dubai hotel hours before New Year's celebrations was caused by an electrical fault, police said Wednesday, ruling out any criminal activity.

"It was an accident due to an electrical short circuit," Dubai police chief Khamis al-Muzainah told reporters.

Grasping the edge of a balcony 48 stories from the ground, just meters away from a raging fire, the photographer thought he may not live to see 2016.

"One hour, then that's it, I'm dead," he thought as he stood on the tiny sill of a balcony in Dubai's luxury The Address Downtown hotel, attached by a rope to a massive window-cleaning platform.

Investigators in Dubai were working Friday to determine the cause of a spectacular fire that engulfed a 63-story luxury hotel on New Year's Eve three hours before midnight.

The huge blaze at The Address Downtown hotel erupted around 9:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Thursday, sparking panic but no reports of serious injuries.

A huge fire ripped through a luxury Dubai hotel on Thursday near the world's tallest tower, where people were gathering to watch New Year's Eve celebrations, police said.

The Dubai government media office tweeted that a "fire has been reported in the Address Downtown hotel. Authorities are currently on-site to address the incident swiftly and safely".

Prime Minister Tammam Salam traveled on Sunday to the United Arab Emirates where he paid condolences to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President and Ruler of Dubai over the death of his eldest son.

Education Minister Elias Bou Saab accompanied Salam in his visit, the National News Agency said.

Dubai police said Wednesday that a report of an Asian woman drowning after her father blocked lifeguards from rescuing her, which was widely discussed on social media, dated from nearly two decades ago.

The report, first published by the Dubai-based Emirates 24/7 news website and picked up by several media including Agence France Presse, quoted a police official as saying the father had blocked lifeguards from saving his daughter because it would "dishonor" her to be touched by strange men.

An Emirates A380 plane with more than 500 people on board had to make an emergency landing in Sri Lanka on Friday due to a "technical fault", aviation officials said.

The aircraft was en route to Dubai from Sydney when it was diverted to Colombo, where it landed safely early on Friday morning.

An Etihad Airways flight traveling from Cairo to Abu Dhabi was diverted Sunday to a military base in the United Arab Emirates due to a false security alert, the carrier said.

Flight EY650 landed at al-Minhad airbase in Dubai "due to a security alert," the Abu Dhabi-based carrier said in a statement, adding that the plane was searched "but nothing of a suspicious nature was found."

Twenty-eight men and women have been fined or jailed for attending an alcohol-fueled sex party on a yacht in Dubai, reports said on Monday.

The Court of Misdemeanors sentenced two men and three women to one year each in prison for having sex outside of marriage, the Khaleej Times reported.

The lights fade and rapid-fire images flash across a large screen to the sounds of war: marching men, the flaming afterburner of a fighter jet, radio traffic and adrenaline-pumping music.

Cue multilingual Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri and his nightly media briefing on Operation Decisive Storm, the Saudi-led coalition which began air strikes against Shiite militia in neighbouring Yemen on March 26.