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Cyclone Gonu death toll hits 32
09/06/2007 08:17 - (SA)
Muscat - Cyclone Gonu, which tore through Oman this week before veering towards Iran, killed at least 32 people and left another 30 missing in the Gulf sultanate, police said on Friday.
"The toll from cyclone Gonu has reached 32 dead and 30 missing," a police spokesperson said in a statement published by the official Ona news agency.
Oman was lashed by driving rain and heavy winds on Wednesday as thousands of people were evacuated in the face of the storm.
Television broadcast footage of overturned cars and flooded roads on the battered east coast, and a police spokesperson said officers even had to use jet skis in some areas of the seaside capital.
As the sunshine returned to the normally dry sultanate on Thursday, residents ventured into the open to find trees and road signs uprooted and debris washed up along the shore.
Storm lost force
Although the storm had raised fears about oil shipments in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one quarter of the world's crude supplies pass, officials said shipping had not been affected.
In neighbouring Iran, the storm lost force as it drove inland after hitting the southern coast late on Wednesday, killing two people and forcing about 40 000 to flee.
Late on Thursday, most of those who had been evacuated from coastal areas in the southern Sistan-Baluchestan and Hormozgan provinces to higher ground had returned to their homes, state television said.
Two people in a truck loaded with emergency supplies were killed in Hormozgan's southern port of Bandar-e Jask when a river overflowed because of the heavy rains, causing the vehicle to overturn, relief officials said.
Iran 'ready to offer assistance'
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, meanwhile, has telephoned his Omani counterpart, Yussef bin Alawi bin Abdullah, to express sympathy for those affected and to offer help, Iranian state television said on Friday.
"(Iran) is ready to offer any kind of aid and assistance to those hurt by the cyclone and the victims' families," Mottaki said.
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Air Force reported that they have delivered 40 tons of food to the Iranian port city of Chabahar in rain-affected Sistan-Baluchestan province.
- AFP
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