Cyclone Gonu's winds blast Oman coast

By SAEED AL-NAHDY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

Stronger than normal waves come ashore at Muscat, Oman, Tuesday June 5 2007. A cyclone expected to be the strongest storm ever recorded in the Arabian Peninsula churned toward the oil-rich Gulf on Tuesday, forcing thousands of residents of Oman's coastal towns to flee their homes. Its affect the region's oil installations was unclear with the storm expected to skirt or lose strength before hitting the most important installations in the Persian Gulf off of Saudi Arabia and southern Iran. (AP Photos/Hamid Al-qasmi)

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MUSCAT, Oman -- A powerful cyclone menaced Oman's central coast with strong winds and rain early Wednesday, after thousands of resident fled to higher ground. Forecasters said the Arabian Peninsula's strongest storm in 60 years was on a course for southern Iran and the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

Cyclone-force winds of Gonu, which had been churning northwest through the Indian Ocean, reached the Omani coastal towns of Sur and Ra's al-Hadd. Civil Defense said the storm was dropping heavy rains on the capital, Muscat, and other nearby towns. But there were no immediate reports of any serious damage.

At 6 p.m. EDT, Cyclone Gonu was centered just off central Oman, about 140 miles southeast of Muscat, and was traveling along the coastline at about 8 mph, according to the U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

The storm had weakened somewhat during the day but was still packing winds of up to 106 mph and churning up ocean waves, predicted to reach as high as 36 feet, Oman civil defense officials said.

Heavy rains pelted Muscat early Wednesday, and streets were empty as most people stayed indoors, said blogger Vijayakumar Narayanan in a telephone interview.

"Everyone is cocooned in their houses," said Narayanan, whom NowPublic.com reached out to in Oman. NowPublic.com is a journalism Web site with 98,000 members in 3,500 communities worldwide. "Shops and businesses are closed."

Narayanan said city streets were quickly becoming flooded, but there were no reports of wind damage.

He said the storm has alarmed many Omanis, unaccustomed to cyclones. "They haven't had this kind of fear before."

Gonu was expected to skirt the region's biggest oil installations but could disrupt shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, causing a spike in prices, oil analysts said.

Oil prices rose on Monday but retreated Tuesday, although the storm weighed heavily on the market.

"If the storm hits Iran, it's a much bigger story than Oman, given how much bigger an oil producer Iran is," said Antoine Haff of FIMAT USA, a brokerage unit of Societe Generale. "At a minimum, it's likely to affect tanker traffic and to shut down some Omani oil production as a precautionary measure."

Gonu, which means a bag made of palm leaves in the language of the Maldives, is expected to hit the east coast of Oman and head to the Gulf of Oman, according to AccuWeather.com meteorologist Donn Washburn. The cyclone was expected to hit land in southeastern Iran late Wednesday or early Thursday, Washburn said.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center, a U.S. military task force that tracks storms in the Pacific and Indian oceans, predicted rough seas in the Straits of Hormuz, the transport route for two-fifths of the world's oil and the southern entrance to the Gulf.

In Tehran, the government's Department of Meteorology predicted heavy rain and strong winds along Iran's southeastern coast. Storm warnings had been issued and some damage was expected, the department said.

On Tuesday, as the cyclone approached, authorities evacuated nearly 7,000 people from Masirah, a lowland island off the east coast of Oman, according to Gen. Malik bin Suleiman al-Muamri, head of the country's civil defense. Oman's main international airport in Muscat was also closed.

Masirah Island includes one of four air bases that the Omani government allows the U.S. military to use for refueling, logistics and storage, although little has been revealed publicly about U.S.-Oman military ties.

The Masirah base hosted U.S. B-1B bombers, C-130 transports and U.S. Special Forces AC-130 gunships during the war in Afghanistan, and the United States has continued to have basing rights on the island.

U.S. forces are preparing for Gonu "just like anyone would prepare for such a cyclone," said Lt. Denise Garcia, a spokeswoman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, which is based in Bahrain. She declined to provide more details.

She said U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the region were also taking precautions to avoid Gonu, but there was no major overhaul of operations. The U.S. military has offered its assistance to Oman, but so far, Omani authorities have not requested help, she said.

On Masirah, authorities said a state of emergency had been declared. Troops and police were mobilized to help provide shelter and medical services.

Families were also leaving their homes Tuesday on the mainland, officials said. The government said schools and public building were emptied to make room for the evacuees.

Oman's major oil installations, which were not directly in the storm's projected path and nowhere near as extensive as those of its neighbors, continued operations but took precautions as Gonu approached.

In neighboring Saudi Arabia, the government said the country and oil markets would not be seriously affected by the storm.

But some oil analysts said the storm could have a damaging effect on the oil market.

Manouchehr Takin, an analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London, said the real fear is that the loading of tankers might be delayed by the storm.

"About 17-21 million barrels a day of oil are coming out of the Persian Gulf. Even if only some of the tankers are delayed, that could reduce the supply of oil and increase prices," Takin said.

Even with the weaker wind speeds, Gonu is expected to be the strongest cyclone to hit the Arabian Peninsula since record keeping started in 1945.

A cyclone is the term used for hurricanes in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific.

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Associated Press writers Anna Johnson in Cairo, Egypt; Robert H. Reid in Amman, Jordan; Sarah DiLorenzo in New York, and Thomas Wagner, Tariq Panja and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

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