In Muscat thousands of residents were evacuated from eastern coastal areas. The storm unleashed sheets of rainfall and howling winds rarely seen in this quiet seaside capital. Police and emergency vehicles could hardly move through the flooded streets, and authorities used text messages to warn people to move away from low-lying areas.
Gonu peaked to a maximum-force Category Five hurricane on Tuesday but has been downgraded to a Category One hurricane.
The cyclone was initially packing winds of 260 kilometers (160 miles) an hour but they dropped to between 120 and 176 kilometers (71 and 105 miles) an hour, Omani weather officials said.
Meteorology officials also said the cyclone was expected to be the strongest to hit the Arabian Peninsula since 1977 although OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia said it did not expect it to affect oil-producing regions.
In Oman, however, the country's only outlet for 650,000 barrels per day of crude exports, Mina al-Fahal, was shut for a second day as was the Sur terminal, which handles 10 million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas.
Iran also evacuated tens of thousands of people on Wednesday living on the coast or river banks in southern provinces further inland to escape the storm, expected to hit in the coming hours although downpours were already drenching coast areas.
The southern ports of Bandar-e-Jask and Chahbahar were set to be the worst affected by torrential rain, possible floods and waves up to five meters (16 feet) high.
In Oman, the army, police and civil defense have all been mobilized since Tuesday and a senior police officer said about 18,000 people been evacuated across the country.
He said there were no reports of any deaths or injuries as a result of the storm, although there was some structural damage. Residents could return home after 24 hours if the force of the cyclone did not increase, he added.
Schools, as well as the public and private sectors were ordered to shut down from Wednesday until Sunday.
In Muscat, a power cut in one hotel forced many guests with flash lights into corridors to exchange travel woes as the storm raged outside.
The Saudi weather service said on Tuesday it did not expect any direct impact on its oil-producing central and eastern regions.
A spokesman for the UAE's meteorology department said on Tuesday the cyclone would have little impact on the country, also a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
But the local press said UAE authorities had told fishermen on the eastern coast not to take their boats out until Thursday.
Yemen, at the other southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, has also deployed civil defense teams across coastal areas in the event of any impact from the cyclone.
Even with the weaker wind speeds, Gonu, which means a bag made of palm leaves in the language of the Maldives, is believed to be the strongest cyclone to threaten the Arabian Peninsula since record-keeping started in 1945. |
