Current location:	Muscat, Oman
Current mood:	anxious
Current music:	-none-
Entry tags:	cyclone, disaster, emergency, flooding, gonu, natural, weather

I know, an update is more than just OVERDUE.....
... but believe me there has been plenty afoot.

For starters, there was CYCLONE GONU, which struck Muscat on the night of the 5th of June. Rains pretty much continued throughout 6th June, especially after 6 pm, which was when the eye passed over Muscat. My area was left pretty much unharmed (we had some debris but nothing disaster-area looking) and the government had warned us against road travel, so we had no idea how bad some other areas had it. Of course, road travel during rains in Msucat is always a bad idea - they just aren't equiipped witht the proper drainage system and infrastructure to handle rains (even light showers).

On the norning of the 7th, I got a call from one of my closest friend, Poonam, who I actually had been calling pretty frequently throughout last night. She lives in one of the most low-lying areas in Msucat - right behind the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, and quite close to where my dad's office is located. She needed a huge favour - a place for her and her sister to stay until this mess was sorted out. I agreed, and when I got there to pick her up I was shocked. The boundary wall had collapsed - this wall was 4 feet high - and there was water everywhere, the level close to 6 feet of water. SUV's were drowned, and I spotted a BMX bike floating around somewhere. My friend and her sister lowered themselves down from their 2nd floor flat's balcony from some bedsheets, along with their luggage. The tenants of the ground and first floor had come up and basically 12 other strangers were forced to spend the night at their home.

Medical services were upto their neck in calls for help. The north-west regions had been affected severely and that was where the bulk of the aid was going. We still had electricity and running water (unlike a lot of places around Msucat), but we had to go grocery shopping for our guests. The shelves on the supermarkets were cleaned out of bread, milk, mineral water, etc. People had stocked up on candles and torches and the like in case the power blew, and when the stores ran out of regular candles, people bought the aromatherapy ones.

My dad's office is basically submerged. There is a giant crater in the parking caused by the rains where you can actully see the sewer pipes and wires and stuff (that's what you told me, Priya). Oh, and all the BEC employees' passports have been damaged. So..... all round, we are all screwed.

We just were cut off our running water supply - the gas pipe at Ghubra blew so the repairs have stooped the Ghubra plant from functioning (the desalination plant). We still have power, and hopefully water should be available byt the evening. In the meantime we are bathing in mineral water, like Cleopatra or something.

Oh well. The storm was fun while it lasted. Nothing as bad as some of the recent storms, like Katrina or anything, but still pretty severe for this region! Not much property damage because there aren't any mobile homes or any wooden houses or anything - it's mostly just flooding, and muck and grime all over the floors.

That's all for now. More as the cleanup progresses.