12 killed by cyclone Gonu

At least 12 people have died from Cyclone Gonu in the Arabian Peninsula sultanate, a spokesman for the Royal Oman Police told Oman TV today.

Abdullah al-Harthi did not provide more details on the deaths or say where in Oman they occurred. The storm battered Oman’s coast with violent winds and fierce rains before heading into the Gulf of Oman today on its way to south-eastern Iran.

The storm – a rarity in the Middle East – was expected to make landfall on the south-eastern Iranian coast later today, according to the US military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.

However, it was likely to spare Iran’s offshore oil installations that lie more than 120 miles to the west.

In Muscat, the cyclone unleashed sheets of rainfall and howling winds rarely seen in the quiet seaside capital.

Police and emergency vehicles could hardly move through the flooded streets, and authorities used text messages to warn people away from low-lying areas.

The storm caused little damage to Oman’s relatively small oil fields.

However, raging seas prevented tankers from sailing from Omani ports, effectively shutting down the country’s oil exports, said Nasser bin Khamis al-Jashimi of the Ministry of Oil and Gas.

Authorities also closed all operations at the port of Sohar and evacuated 11,000 workers, port spokesman Dirk Jan De Vink said.

To the north, the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates suspended all refuelling and ship-to-ship supply operations the world’s third-largest shipping fuel centre.

Ships were allowed to berth but other activities were halted, causing a delay in loading oil tankers, officials said.

A few ships were sailing through the nearby Strait of Hormuz despite 4- to 6-foot swells and strong winds, according to Suresh Nair of the Gulf Agency Co shipping firm.

About one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through the narrow waterway at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.