MUSCAT, June 7: Cyclone Gonu killed at least 25 people in Oman and left another 26 missing, state television said on Thursday, as driving rain and pounding winds in the fiercest storm to hit the Gulf for 30 years halted the country's oil exports.

A police spokesman, who gave an earlier toll of 20 dead, said that half of those killed had drowned in flooding caused by torrential rain, and that police and army helicopters were searching for the missing.

In neighbouring Iran, where the much weakened storm was expected to make landfall on Thursday night, three people have already been killed in heavy weather and authorities have warned that more casualties could be expected.

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.

But United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Mohammed al-Hameli, who is also president of OPEC, said the storm had not affected shipping through the straits.

“Shipping is normal in the Straits of Hormuz, which are and which will remain open for petroleum exports from the region,” he was quoted by the official WAM news agency as saying.

A maritime official in Oman said the sultanate's main oil terminal at Mina al-Fahal was closed but that supplies are not facing severe disruption as it is expected to reopen on Friday.Also closed was the nearby Port Sultan Qaboos, Oman's largest cargo facility in the capital, Muscat. It too is expected to resume operating on Friday.

“We are working to reopen it tomorrow,” Saud al-Nahari, chief executive of the Port Services Corporation, said.

The Port of Sohar, situated 240 kilometres northwest of Muscat, reopened at 0800 GMT, port controller Mohammed al-Nofli told reporters by telephone, while adding that no ships had yet entered the port.

Oman was lashed with driving rain and heavy wind 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 spokesman said officers even had to use jet skis in some areas of the seaside capital.

As the sunshine returned to the normally dry sultanate, residents ventured into the open to find trees and road signs uprooted and debris washed up along the shore.

In Iran, where three fatalities were reported and authorities warned of more, tens of thousands of people hunkered down in shelters.

The first winds and rain hit Iran's southern coast late on Wednesday, packing winds of 200 kilometres an hour and damaging clay-built houses ill equipped to withstand the storm.—AFP