SALALAH: Cyclone Mek­unu neared the Arabian Peninsula on Friday as its outer bands dumped heavy rain and bent palm trees in Oman, a sign of the approaching storm’s power after earlier thrashing the Yemeni island of Socotra.

Already at least 40 people, including Yemenis, Indians and Sudanese, were reported missing on Socotra, where flash floods washed away thousands of animals and cut power lines on the isle in the Arabian Sea. Officials feared some may be dead.

The cyclone is expected to make landfall early Saturday near Salalah, Oman’s third-largest city and home to some 200,000 people close to the sultanate’s border with war-ravaged Yemen.

Conditions quickly deteriorated in Salalah after sunrise on Friday, with winds and rain beginning to pick up. Strong waves smashed into empty tourist beaches. Many holidaymakers fled the storm before Salalah Inte­rnational Airport clos­ed. The Port of Salalah a key gateway for the country also closed, its cranes secured against the pounding rain.

Streets quickly emptied across the city. Standing water covered roads and caused at least one car to hydroplane and flip over.

Later, a municipal worker on a massive loader used its bucket to tear into a road median to drain a flooded street, showing how desperate the situation could become.

Omani forecasters warned Salalah and the surrounding area would get at least 200 millimetres (7.87 inches) of rain, over twice the amount of rain this city typically gets in a year. Authorities remained worried about flash flooding in the area’s valleys and potential mudslides down its nearby cloud-shrouded mountains.

A sizable police presence fanned out across Salalah, the hometown of Oman’s longtime ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Many officers rode in Royal Oman Police SUVs with chicken wire over the windows, likely because their other vehicles weren’t tall enough to maneuver through the flood water.

“Of course, for the citizen there is going to be a sense of fear of the consequences that can happen,” said Brig. Gen. Mohsin bin Ahmed al-Abri, the commander of Dhofar governorate’s police. “We have been through a few similar cases and there were losses in properties and also in human life as well. But one has to take precautions and work on that basis.” As torrential rains poured down, local authorities opened schools to shelter those whose homes are at risk. About 600 people, mostly labourers, huddled at the West Salalah School, some sleeping on mattresses on the floors of classrooms, where math and English lesson posters hung on the walls.

Shahid Kazmi, a worker from Pakistan’s Kashmir region, said that police moved him and others to the school. He acknowledged being a bit scared of the storm but said: “Inshallah, we are safe here.”

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2018