Thousands flee as Cyclone Chapala batters war-ravaged Yemen, hitting Al Qaeda-controlled town of Mukalla
Updated
A cyclone with hurricane-force winds has caused flooding and sent thousands fleeing for shelter after it made landfall on Yemen's Arabian Sea coast.
Officials and meteorologists said Cyclone Chapala was the most intense storm in decades for the country, in which the storm response is hampered by poverty and a raging civil war.
In the provincial capital Mukalla, which has largely been ruled by Al Qaeda fighters since the army withdrew in April, water submerged cars on city streets and caused dozens of families to flee to a hospital for fear of rock slides.
Residents said the seafront promenade and many homes had been destroyed by the cyclone, while officials in the dry hinterland province of Shabwa said about 6,000 people had moved to higher ground.
"The wind knocked out power completely in the city and people were terrified. Some residents had to leave their homes and escape to higher areas where flooding was less. It was a difficult night, but it passed off peacefully," Mukalla resident Sabri Saleem said.
There were no initial reports of injuries.
The cyclone first hit the remote Yemeni island of Socotra, killing three people and displacing thousands.
Socotra is home to hundreds of plant species found nowhere else on Earth and lies 380 kilometres off Yemen in the Arabian Sea.
Its 50,000 residents speak their own language.
Meteorological agencies had earlier predicted Chapala would hit land around Balhaf, the site of Yemen's liquefied natural gas terminal, and weaken as it advanced towards the capital Sanaa in the country's north.
The facility has been mostly shuttered since the start of a war in March between a Saudi-led Arab military coalition and the Iran-allied Houthi movement which controls Sanaa.
It was not immediately clear if the terminal, once a lifeline for Yemen's weak economy, suffered damage.
Reuters
Topics: weather, disasters-and-accidents, cyclone, unrest-conflict-and-war, yemen
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