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A powerful cyclone menaced Oman's central coast with strong winds and rain early Wednesday, after thousands of resident fled to higher ground. Forecasters said the Arabian Peninsula's strongest storm in 60 years was on a course for southern Iran and the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Cyclone-force winds of Gonu, which had been churning northwest through the Indian Ocean, reached the Omani coastal towns of Sur and Ra's al-Hadd. Civil Defense said the storm was dropping heavy rains on the capital, Muscat, and other nearby towns. But there were no immediate reports of any serious damage. At 6 p.m. EDT, Cyclone Gonu was centered just off central Oman, about 140 miles southeast of Muscat, and was traveling along the coastline at about 8 mph, according to the U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The storm had weakened somewhat during the day but was still packing winds of up to 106 mph and churning up ocean waves, predicted to reach as high as 36 feet, Oman civil defense officials said. Source : Forbes.com News
Heavy rains pelted Muscat early Wednesday, and streets were empty as most people stayed indoors, said blogger Vijayakumar Narayanan in a telephone interview. "Everyone is cocooned in their houses," said Narayanan, whom NowPublic.com reached out to in Oman. NowPublic.com is a journalism Web site with 98,000 members in 3,500 communities worldwide. "Shops and businesses are closed." Narayanan said city streets were quickly becoming flooded, but there were no reports of wind damage. He said the storm has alarmed many Omanis, unaccustomed to cyclones. "They haven't had this kind of fear before." Gonu was expected to skirt the region's biggest oil installations but could disrupt shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, causing a spike in prices, oil analysts said. Oil prices rose on Monday but retreated Tuesday, although the storm weighed heavily on the market. "If the storm hits Iran, it's a much bigger story than Oman, given how much bigger an oil producer Iran is," said Antoine Haff of FIMAT USA, a brokerage unit of Societe Generale. "At a minimum, it's likely to affect tanker traffic and to shut down some Omani oil production as a precautionary measure." Continue reading full artile on Forbes.com |
