A powerful cyclone lashed Oman's coast and capital with rare heavy rains and wind yesterday, after thousands of people fled low-lying areas.
The strongest recorded storm to hit the Arabian peninsula was moving next toward southern Iran, but was weakening and was expected to skirt the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
No deaths had been reported by midmorning yesterday across Oman or its capital, Muscat, where rains were heavy and visibility was near-zero at midmorning. Rains had subsided slightly earlier yesterday but had intensified again by midmorning and were expected to remain strong through midafternoon, as the heaviest part of the storm moved closer to Muscat.
Electricity was out in some parts of the city and many roads were closed, but Omani officials said most of the country's oilfields, to the northwest of the capital, were still operating.
In Iran, authorities evacuated hundreds of people living in the port city of Chabahr on the coast of the Sea of Oman, believed to be next in the cyclone's path.
The storm had weakened considerably since Tuesday. Maximum sustained winds of about 145kph were reported with gusts to nearly 167kph, regional weather services said.
A tracking map posted on the Web site of the US military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center predicted the center of the storm would skirt the capital Muscat after 1200 GMT yesterday.
Blogger Vijayakumar Narayanan said in a telephone interview that many city streets were flooded and that visibility was near-zero in Muscat at midmorning yesterday. At 5:50am, he wrote in his blog: "We have noticed rains have subsided considerably ... Some of the wadis have started flooding, causing roadblocks." But at 9am, he said rains had again become strong in the city.
Narayanan said the storm has alarmed many Omanis, unaccustomed to cyclones.
Oman's eastern provinces were cut off, with heavy rains making the roads unusable and communication lines severed.
"We have no communication with them, nothing," said a senior police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Parts of Muscat had no electricity, government official Sheik Mohamed bin Saif said.
Cyclone Gonu, which had been churning northwest through the Indian Ocean, had earlier reached the Omani coastal towns of Sur and Ra's al-Hadd.
It 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.
"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.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese