Death toll from Oman cyclone hits 49
Pastor Dale Morgan
Death toll from Oman cyclone hits 49*
MUSCAT, June 8 (AFP) Jun 08, 2007
Cyclone Gonu, which tore through Oman this week before veering towards
Iran, killed at least 49 people and left another 27 missing in the Gulf
sultanate, police said on Friday.
"The death toll from Cyclone Gonu has risen to 49," a police spokesman
told the official ONA news agency.
Oman was lashed by driving rain and heavy winds on Wednesday as
thousands of people were evacuated in the face of the storm.
Television broadcast footage of overturned cars and flooded roads on the
battered east coast, and a police spokesman said officers even had to
use jet skis in some areas of the seaside capital.
As the sunshine returned to the normally dry sultanate on Thursday,
residents ventured into the open to find trees and road signs uprooted
and debris washed up along the shore.
Although the storm had raised fears about oil shipments in the Strait of
Hormuz, through which about one quarter of the world's crude supplies
pass, officials said shipping had not been affected.
Muscat airport, which was closed by the storm, reopened on Friday,
flagcarrier Omanair said.
In neighbouring Iran, the storm lost force as it drove inland after
hitting the southern coast late on Wednesday, killing two people and
forcing some 40,000 to flee.
By late Thursday, most of those who had been evacuated from coastal
areas in the southern Sistan-Baluchestan and Hormozgan provinces had
returned to their homes, state television said.
Two people in a truck loaded with emergency supplies were killed in
Hormozgan's southern port of Bandar-e Jask when a river overflowed
because of the heavy rains, causing the vehicle to overturn, relief
officials said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki telephoned his Omani
counterpart, Yussef bin Alawi bin Abdullah, to express sympathy for
those affected and to offer help, Iranian state television said Friday.
"(Iran) is ready to offer any kind of aid and assistance to those hurt
by the cyclone and the victims' families," Mottaki said.
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards' air force said it had delivered 40
tons of food to the port city of Chabahar in Sistan-Baluchestan province.