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Cyclone pounds oil region
07/06/2007 10:04 - (SA)
Muscat - Cyclone Gonu battered Oman's coast with fierce winds and torrential rains, forcing thousands from their homes and shutting down oil installations before heading toward the world's most important crude oil tanker route.
The storm - a rarity in the Middle East - continued a weakening trend and by dawn on Thursday in Oman it had dropped off to tropical storm strength, according to the US military's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.
The centre projected Gonu to continue to decline in power as it headed toward landfall on the southeastern Iranian coast on Thursday. But it was likely to spare Iran's offshore oil installations that lie more than 200km to the west, the centre and oil officials said.
In Muscat on Wednesday, the storm 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. But 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 spokesperson 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.
At dawn on Thursday in Oman, the storm had sustained winds of 84kph, nearly half its strength of 153kph just 24 hours earlier, the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre said. It was centred about 145km north of Muscat and was projected to weaken over the next several hours to less than 65kph as it moves through the Gulf of Oman toward landfall in Iran.
- AP
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