As State warns of Impending Cyclone that is set to affect coastal areas
By: Latifa Yusuf Masai
AWBARKADLE (Somaliland sun) – Two people narrowly escaped death after their car was swept away by floods at Awbarkadle 30 kms east of Hargeisa.
The two lucky Somalilanders, a driver and navigator of 571 Khat company survived after residents managed to pull them out of their Khat laden car that had been swept away by flooding waters occasioned by the heavy rains ongoing in Maroodi-jeeh region.
According to the local division officer Mahad Mahmud Gahayr the two Khat transporters were rescued by residents from inside their vehicle then being swept away by heavy floods after they attempted to cross a flooded section of the road linking Hargeisa to Berbera and beyond.
Reports indicate that the two among a large number of stranded motorists crossed paths with death after they ignored advice to stick put and decided to cross the section of road brimming with fast flowing waters that emanate from as far as Gabile almost 100 kms away via Hargeisa in the west and by-pass Awbarkadle to the Indian Ocean in the east.
Empirically Somalilandsun is aware that Khat transporters do not only drive past maximum speeds but in their haste to deliver their perishable cargo they are daring in their exploits of crossing flooded sections of roads where others dare not.
According to our editor who was stranded at the same spot in august 2013 ” The perpetual fast Khat vehicle drivers take a minute’s glance at the flooded intersection, the vehicles and people trapped on both sides and smile before jumping back to the driving seat, reverse and in flash of water they are on the other side”
“though it is boom time for youths at Awbarkadle and other areas with similar problems of non-existent bridges during the rainy season, stranded motorists, their human and material cargo suffer much thence urgent measures required from both the central and local councils” adds editor Yusuf M Hasan
While thanking the mayor of Hargeisa and the entire municipality for prompt response to requests for earthmovers among them caterpillars that supported the life saving efforts and ongoing clearances the Awbarkadle division officer Mahad Mahmud Gahayr also warned motorists to be wary of the floods at the seasonal river where numerous deaths have occurred in the past.
Meanwhile the pounding rains in some parts of the country especially the capital Hargeisa and surrounding areas that have caused damage to some infrastructures resulted in the state warning citizens of impending cyclone.
According to the presidency minister Mahmud Abdi Hashi residents of coastal areas in Somaliland should be wary of fast moving winds that precludes a cyclone that experts predict will hit soon.
The presidency minister caution this disaster during an inspection tour of ongoing works to rehabilitate a number sections at the road linking Hargeisa to Berbera and beyond destroyed by recent heavy rains.
Revealing that the Awdal Region coastal areas of Bulahar and Lugahaya in the west of the country have already been affected by heavy rains and powerful winds minister Hashi said that the government is already providing relief to those affected but more damage should be avoided.
“Our experts inform that the anticipated powerful winds might trigger destructive flash flooding thence urge all fishermen immediately withdraw from sea” said the presidency minister
Though the government did not acknowledge it, the caution and Awdal region coastal mishap is connected to the Cyclone Megh, another Arabian Sea tropical cyclone which has already hit neighbouring Yemen is intensifying and heading toward Socotra Island.
According to the India Meteorological Department, the agency sanctioned by the World Meteorological Organization for issuing official tropical cyclone bulletins for the Arabian Sea, the center of Cyclone Megh is about 350 miles (about 570 kilometers) east of Socotra Island, an island about 150 miles east of the Horn of Africa in the central Arabian Sea.
But according to climatechange the cyclone merg is not a natural but one engineered somewhere
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