SALALAH: The death toll from a cyclone that battered southern Oman and the Yemeni island of Socotra has reached 11, while eight sailors are still missing, authorities said late Saturday.

Cyclone Mekunu hit Oman’s Dhofar and Al-Wusta provinces on Friday after intensifying from a category one to a category two cyclone, with winds of up to 170 kilometres per hour after it made landfall on Socotra on Thursday.

Oman’s civil defence service on Saturday reported two deaths, adding to an earlier toll of a man and a 12-year-old girl.

“The third is an Asian man who was missing but his body was found late Saturday in Dhofar” province, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Saeed Al-Badaei said at a press conference late Saturday. “The fourth is a young Omani man who was swept away in his car by flooding,” he added.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2018