Sunday, June 24, 2007

Humanitarian gestures after gonu

Times News Service

MUSCAT

The humanitarian crisis which has been unleashed by Tropical Cyclone Gonu is being tackled by people with their magnanimous humanitarian gestures.

Zubaidah Al Baloushi has come all the way from Al Mawaleh and has been going around in various localities of Muscat scouting for people who are in need of water.

Zubaidah’s car is filled with cartons of water and the passengers are her children, sister and nieces who are distributing the water to many people.

This simple but noble act of charity underlines the mood of the people post-cyclone as the state machinery and the citizens are supplementing each other in the relief and rescue work in order to restore a semblance of sanity after the twin blows of infrastructural damage and severe water shortage brought by the cyclone.

The Muscat Municipality has arranged hordes of workers to clear all the roads of the mud and muck, while the army and the police have combined together to reach out to the people who have been stranded in the villages.

His Majesty the Sultan’s wise decision to declare holidays till Saturday has helped matters a lot as the municipality and rescue workers were able to work unhindered to clear the roads and help the injured and the affected people.

In any case, municipality workers have a tough time on hand as they try to clear the roads in Ghubra and Azaiba, the most-hard hit area.

A tour by Times of Oman has revealed that many of the neighbourhoods in Gubra and Azaiba were still water-logged with weed and other debris lying in and around most of the areas which are resembling mini-lakes.

Sarooj Construction Company which is located in a particular low lying area near Chedi Hotel was completely submerged under water.

Selvan Neelaganta, who is the camp incharge for this company, said that he had evacuated most of the employees just before the cyclone and was all alone in the camp when the waters began to surge.

Immediately realising the danger, he jumped from the window and began to run when he found a parked shovel loader. He got into it and escaped.

Workers were seen using heavy machinery to salvage personal belongings from the flooded cabins which were floating among scores of stranded trucks.

Further up the road at Shatti Azaiba, the beach road was cut into two by the wadi which was still flowing heavily.

Those people who have been evacuated from low lying areas and coastal villages are staying in some schools and other relief centres. Such people are being supplied with food and water.

Work is also going on at a hectic pace to restore the damaged Qurum highway as well the Wadi Adai roads.

Many of the tree-lined avenues are no longer the same as the force of the gale packed a punch and felled many of the beautiful neem trees like nine pins and blocked many of the roads.

Civic workers were engaged in cutting and sawing off the trunks and branches of these trees as they blocked many of the roads.

The severe water shortage situation has improved slightly with residents of some areas like Qurum stating that they received tap water for a short period.

Officials of the Minister of Housing, Electricity and Water have stated that they are pumping water in limited quantities area wise as the full production of water has not yet begun.

But the sources said that all the water distribution systems have begun to function normally and it is just a matter of time before the reservoirs fill up and water reaches the domestic consumers.

Following the water shortage, a lot of the citizens have turned to the very same wadis which had wreaked destruction and damage and lined up on their banks to take their baths and clean cars.

A number of the large private sector companies were also reported to have supplied drinking water to their employees as a humanitarian gesture.

In another development, water tankers filled with water from as far away as Fanja, Samail were coming to Muscat to meet the demand of the consumers.

Representatives of Erko Oman LLC, which had commissioned four huge tankers each carrying around 4000-7000 litres of water said that they brought this water from Fanja and were supplying it to Royal Hospital and other big companies.

Water tankers were also seen buzzing up and down on many roads to cater to the demand.

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