Aden/Salalah: At least 10 people were killed and several went missing after Cyclone Mekunu pummelled the Yemeni island of Socotra before making its way to the Arabian Peninsula's southern coast.
According to news agency reports, the dead were five Yemenis, three Omanis and two Indians. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that the missing included Yemenis, Indians and Sudanese.
Missing Indians
On Thursday, the storm pummelled the island of Socotra in war-torn Yemen, leaving at least 19 people missing, causing severe flooding and material damage.
Yemen's fisheries minister Fahad Kafin said that of those missing, 14 were Indian sailors who were at the island's port when the cyclone struck. He told AFP that authorities have recovered the bodies of the five Yemeni nationals and two Indians and were still searching for the remaining people.
Later, Socotro governor Ramzy Mahrous told Saba news agency that four sailors who were missing were found alive on Friday. However, the identities of the rescued men were not immediately known.
State of emergency in Yemen
Yemen declared a state of emergency on Thursday for Socotra, which lies between southern Yemen and the Horn of Africa and is renowned for its unique animal and plant life.
Largely untouched by Yemen's three-year-old war, it is under the control of the internationally-recognised government whose president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is in exile in Saudi Arabia.
The storm flooded Socotra's villages and capsized boats, leaving much of the island without access to communications.
Thousands of residents near the coastal areas in the two provinces have been evacuated to safer shelters as winds up to of 170 kilometres per hour and torrential rainfall lashed the coastal areas, officials said. Civil defence authorities said they had set up 65 shelter centres in the two affected provinces.
Yemen is already grappling with one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced three million others, triggered a cholera outbreak and pushed the impoverished country to the verge of starvation, according to the United Nations.
Three dead in Oman
On Friday, the cyclone lashed southern Oman with high winds and rain, killing at least three people and wounding three a day after wreaking havoc on the Yemeni island of Socotra. Portions of Salalah lost electricity as the cyclone made landfall.
Oman's directorate general of meteorology said the centre of the cyclone struck west of Salalah, the second largest city in the Gulf state, late Friday accompanied with strong winds, torrential rains and high tides. "Latest observations show that the centre of the cyclone hit the coast of Dhofar province," west of Salalah, the main city in the province, the directorate said in its latest warning.
The Arabian Sea churned Saturday morning, sending mounds of sea foam into the air. The waves ate into one tourist beach, pulling hunks of it away and toppling thatch umbrellas cemented into the sand. As Mekunu barreled overhead, the eye of the storm provided a moment's respite.
State-run Oman Television showed footage of large areas covered with floods in Dhofar and the nearby Al-Wusta provinces. Dozens of vehicles were seen submerged in several areas.
Head of the directorate Abdullah al-Khoduri told Oman TV that the cyclone, which intensified to category 2 early Friday, was downgraded to category 1 after losing some of its strength. He said it would weaken further on Saturday morning into a tropical storm and gradually diminish into a tropical depression before hitting the southern parts of Saudi Arabia.
Police said a 12-year old girl died when a gust of wind sent her smashing into a wall. Three Asians who were wounded by the cyclone were rescued. Police also said that civil defence teams had rescued dozens of people who were trapped because of floods.
Civil defence said it had evacuated 10,000 people from schools and government buildings, mainly in the city of Salalah which has a population of 200,000.
Authorities have urged other residents to stay indoors. Strong winds had already generated 12-metre-high (40-foot-high) waves offshore of the sultanate.
India's Meteorological Department said the storm packed maximum sustained winds of 170-180 kilometres (105-111 miles) per hour with gusts of up to 200 kph (124 mph). It called the cyclone "extremely severe."
Across Salalah, branches and leaves littered the streets. Several underpasses became standing lakes. Some cars were left abandoned on the road. Electrical workers began trying to repair lines in the city while police and soldiers in SUVs patrolled the streets. On the outskirts of the city, near the Salalah International Airport, what once was a dry creek bed had become a raging river.
Many holidaymakers fled the storm Thursday night before the airport closed. The Port of Salalah a key gateway for the country also closed, its cranes secured against the pounding rain.
In 2007, Cyclone Gonu tore through Oman, killing at least 49 people and causing damage estimated at $3.9 billion.
