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Videos of Quriyat after Cyclone Gonu flooding

A week or so ago, a link came into my mail box to a stream of video files said to show the after-effects of the flooding caused by Cyclone Gonu in Qurayat (Quriyat), Oman.

News reports had said the damage was very bad there and it took quite a while to re-establish communications and to ferry relief supplies.

I followed the trail to Btswarm which is home to 'torrents' of video. Since this video collection came to 836 Mb, I had to use Bittorrent to download it. It took me two days.

The result is a collection of video file fragments. The videos were taken from a 4x4 vehicle in an observer convoy presumably bound for Quriyat from Muscat, much of it along a graded track alongside where the road used to be.

My memory of the landscapes is hazy so I cannot be definitive about locations. Neither can I tell you who was in the convoy or what its purpose was, or even who took the video and uploaded it to Btswarm.

Since the author did upload it, presumably he (because it is a he), would not mind it entering the public domain. But lack of any accreditation makes it impossible to assign authorship.

I have edited some of the files into four video clips which I have uploaded to YouTube and am embedding them here. Please note that all the sound tracks are original. You may have to adjust volume.

The first video shows a fine dual carriageway crossing a totally flooded alluvial plain. Music is playing on the radio which is interrupted by an announcement that following the Royal Decree of HM Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the Oman Charitable Organisation is accepting donations from citizens and residents visitors alike for flood relief. The announcer quotes details of a bank account at Oman International Bank, main branch.



The second video shows the destruction of bridges and roads.



The third video, watched entirely through, reveals the wasteland in Quriyat town left by the floods.



The fourth video follows the convoy out of Quriyat on what looks like a coastal stretch. Date palms have been half submerged by sand and silt.

14:09:21 on 07/01/07 by Sue Hutton - Category: Water and environment - Permalink

Comments

tonym wrote:

whats it like there now?

07/28/07 09:52:13

newsbriefs wrote:

The Khaleej Times reported on 17th July that "Around 360 portable buildings were purchased and out of this 70 were handed over to families in Quriyat while the rest are being fixed in the villages of Al Hajer and Al Hail close to Quriyat."

http://www.khaleejtimes.com...

The Wadi Dayqah dam upstream of Quriyat is under construction. It may offset some of the flow towards the town, but Quriyat itself lies at the mouth of Wadi Mijlah.

08/15/07 11:01:06

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