Food and Water shortage in Muscat, OMAN

NO WATER, NO FOOD, NO ELECTRICITY, NO PETROL, NO ROADS TO GO.

The death toll from Wednesday's Cyclone Gonu in Oman has been 49 . More bodies have been recovered in different parts of the country yesterday. Police sources said 27 people were still missing.

Water shortage has hit the residents of Muscat. There's no water for the last two days in most houses in this capital city. People were taking water the flooded wadis as taps went dry in most areas of the capital. There were long queues for drinking water in the hypermarkets where some supplies reached in the morning. By noon none of the shops had any stocks of drinking water.People were running around with empty bottles.
The water supply has been badly affected in Ghubra, Ghala, Al Khuwair, Medinat Qaboos, Medinat Al Alam and the other areas in the north.

There was a damage to water pipelines in Ghubra close to the water desalinisation plant.

Sur and nearby areas are cut off as roads continued to be impassable. Ships with food and other essential supplies, generators and medicines was sent to Quriyat and Sur.

Rationed supply of tanker water was costly as the demand has far exceeded the capacity to supply and some were charging upto RO 50 per tanker load.
There were also reports about smaller supermarkets charging almost eight times more for a mineral water bottle.
National Mineral Waters began distribution of water from their Ghala depot but were inundated with requests for water.

The food supply chains were in shambles as the main roads were blocked and vehicles were damaged. Shortage of food may be another problem as residents started besieging the city's two biggest retail chains like LuLu Hypermarkets and Carrefour Hypermarket.
The distribution supply from wholesalers to the retailers is badly affected due to damaged road links, lack of staff, drivers and closure of ports and airport. It appears it is difficult to resume supply within a few days.

Prices went up for all things . There are no fresh vegetables, meat, eggs, or fish at the moment in the market .

Fuel was also rationed as most fuel stations were giving only 20 litres of petrol to consumers, who were taking fuel in jerry cans as their vehicles were either stranded or broken roads links prevented them to drive to a petrol station.

The country's air Port was opened yesterday so was the port in Sohar but major road links remained broken down.
40 flights with essential supplies were despatched to affected areas on Thursday.

Qurum roundabout , the fly-over that connects it to the highway has collapsed. Main roads were damaged and are now partly open, including the Sohar-Shinas, Sohar-Buraimi and Nizwa-Salalah highways.
Telephones in several parts of the capital still remained cut off yesterday, especially the worst-affected areas of Ghubrah and Al Amerat. Nearly 80 per cent of the small coastal fishing village of Yiti had been destroyed. Qurum commercial area was fully under water for a day. The popular Al Watan newspaper and its sister daily Oman Tribune did not come out for the second consecutive day yesterday because of flooding in the printing press and power failure.