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Cyclone Gonu Death Toll Rising

By cmooney on June 9, 2007.

i-fca369569bd40fd9803980c9c442a9e8-gonu_tmo_2007157.jpg

Cyclone Gonu, having weakened down to a Category 1 equivalent storm, lashes Oman and Iran without making a full landfall on June 6, 2007. Image courtesy of NASA's Earth Observatory.

This historic storm is now estimated to have killed 70 people in Oman and Iran, and that number may continue to rise. Much of the destruction in Iran appears not to have come from winds or from storm surge but, rather, from intense rainfall of a sort that the region isn't at all used to--and of course, dangerous floods resulted. It seems some Iranian villages were swept away entirely. Let's hope coming days don't bring too many similar revelations about the impacts of Gonu....

UPDATE: NASA also provides this revealing image of Gonu's rainfall totals, which shows that some of the heaviest precipitation occurred over the Omnian capital of Muscat and in southern Iran:

i-1c92ed8fb498570e2543bd494c97b33f-Gonu_rainfall.jpg

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