The LuLu Hypermarket in Dubai’s posh Al Barsha neighbourhood bore a passing resemblance to the seventh circle of hell yesterday.

Frantic shoppers, exhausted by two sleepless nights of Iranian missile barrages, were indulging in a wave of panic-buying before bracing themselves for a third.

Social media videos suggesting that bottled water, eggs, plus some fresh fruit and vegetables were close to selling out had persuaded members of the expat community out of their homes to clear the shelves.

By teatime, the sprawling car park was gridlocked, while long queues for the till had made several aisles impassable for shopping trolleys.

‘STOP! You are leaving no essentials for others!’ one local on an expat forum complained.

‘My husband was in the queue at the local shop and the person in front of him had 15 baguettes in their trolley, and there was absolutely no meat left,’ said another.

‘During the war there are no rules.

Each one for himself,’ added a third.

Whether this was a temporary storm in a teacup, or the first flap of a butterfly’s wing that will eventually trigger some sort of humanitarian tsunami, depends on how much faith one now places in the Emirati authorities.

The official line, of course, is that Dubai has been weathering the Iran crisis with aplomb, protecting residents from several overnight waves of drone and missile attacks, and ensuring that life in the turbo-charged Gulf metropolis is able to carry on as normally as possible.

Half a mile from LuLu’s, the vast Mall of the Emirates shopping centre remains open.

As, for now, does its famous indoor ski slope.

Retailers insist that while sales of groceries are up around 50 per cent, causing some shelves to empty, they have sufficient supplies in their warehouse inventory to weather the coming storm.

‘I urge the residents to shop responsibly and there is no reason to panic,’ LuLu’s chairman Yusuff Ali told TV viewers yesterday.

Yet behind the neon-lit facade, the mood is distinctly jumpy.

The five-star Fairmont hotel on the nearby Palm Jumeirah, that vast island shaped like a palm tree, was set ablaze over the weekend, as was the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, while what the authorities are calling ‘incidents’ have closed the city’s harbour and airport, along with the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

Schools and golf courses are largely closed, and on expat forums are complaints about supercar drivers taking advantage of the emptier-than-usual streets to give their high-performance motors a thrashing.

‘My heart skips a beat each time I hear a loud car or motorcycle,’ notes one resident.

‘The sounds they make are painfully similar to some kind of missile/plane and is so anxiety-inducing.’ A second adds: ‘Trying to scare or confuse people is one thing, but also know there are elderly people, kids, people suffering heart issues etc, who really don’t even find it funny.’ Another major bugbear is the so-called ‘Ramadan Cannons’ based in the city’s mosques.

They fire loud shots at the sunset call to prayer.

But in the current environment, such noise is confused with incoming missiles.

‘Pretty sure they have triggered some panic attacks,’ complained one expat.

On a purely statistical basis, it should be stressed that such fears are largely irrational.

Of the roughly four million people who live in Dubai, only a handful have been injured by Iran’s attacks and there have so far been no recorded deaths.

Official figures claimed that Emirati anti-missile systems had destroyed 506 of 541 drones fired at the country by last night, with just 35 falling inside its borders.

Another 165 Iranian ballistic missiles have also been tracked, 152 of which were intercepted, while 13 fell into the sea.

‘So long as the Emirates own more defensive missiles than Iran has offensive ones, we should be fine,’ says one local.

The country’s ‘media office’ is, therefore, anxious to calm residents.

It spent the weekend pumping out pictures of its absolute ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, at Meydan Racecourse for ‘a special evening of thrilling races and strong competition’ in a demonstration of business as usual.

Officials also posted a somewhat menacing message complaining that ‘outdated images of past fire incidents’ in Dubai were being posted to social media by cynics hoping to stoke fear among the city’s residents and thereby garner clicks.

‘Legal action will be taken against those who publish or republish such content in violation of UAE law,’ the post read.

The problem, of course, is that rational behaviour can quickly go out the window when people’s sleep is interrupted by loud noises.

Or, as happened....