Cyclone Nanauk to hit Oman coast on Sunday

ISLAMABAD: Tropical cyclone Nanauk is expected to hit Oman’s coast in the next few days.

Going by the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center s given name of 02A, the cyclone is currently lingering in the Arabian Sea with an estimated speed of 70 to 90kmph, Arab News reported.

According to the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology, by Wednesday afternoon the tropical cyclone was some 960km southeast of the Masirah Island of Oman.

It would move and intensify further in the center of Arabian Sea on June 12 and 13, said the center.

The storm, Oman’s Met Office said is expected to move northwestward and make landfall in Oman between Ras Al Hadd and Ras Madrakah on June 15. Nanauk will intensify further in the center of the Arabian Sea but it is expected to weaken before approaching the coast of Oman. With wind speed reaching 30 35 knots per hour the storm is expected to bring in 100-300mm rainfall in 24 hours all over the Sultanate, a senior Omani official said, adding the height of the sea waves may reach four meters.

The impact of cyclone is expected from Saturday to Monday. Heavy rains and high speed winds are expected to lash North and South Sharqiyah Al Wusta and Muscat governorates. The rapid intensification of the storm was expected given the conducive environment at the sea as well as in the atmosphere.

MH370: Object found on Australian coast not from missing plane

AP In this map provided on Wednesday by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, details are presented in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean. A metal object found on a beach in Western Australia does not belong to the missing Malaysian jet, authorities said on Thursday

A metal object found on a beach in Western Australia does not belong to a Malaysian jet that vanished nearly seven weeks ago, authorities said on Thursday as a robotic mini-submarine scouring the Indian Ocean seabed scanned more than 90 per cent of the focused search area.

Detailed pictures of the object were enough to convince investigators that it wasn’t a lead in the search for the plane, the Australian agency leading the search for the aircraft said.

“We’ve carefully examined detailed photographs that were taken for us by the police, and we’re satisfied that it’s not a lead in terms of the search for MH370.” Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) spokesman Martin Dolan said.

Australia’s joint agency co-ordination centre announced on Wednesday that police had taken possession of an object 10km from the town of Augusta. Malaysian officials were provided with photographs of the object.

The find in Western Australia came shortly after the suspension of the air and underwater search for the plane due to poor weather conditions.

Possible promising leads have turned out to be false alarms for weeks in the lengthy search for the Boeing 777-200 which disappeared mid-flight on March 8 with 239 people, including five Indians, aboard. One major challenge that is complicated the search is that the ocean is full of garbage.

Other objects spotted in the Indian Ocean earlier turned out to be trash, jellyfish and fishing gear.

Inclement weather and ex-tropical cyclone Jack, which is moving south across the Indian ocean, may delay the resumption of the search today.

“Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totalling approximately 49,567 square kilometres. The centre of the search area lies approximately 1,584 kilometres north west of Perth,” according to Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC).

The focused underwater search area to locate the black box is defined as a circle of 10km radius where four acoustic signals were detected.

The remote submersible Bluefin-21 is conducting an underwater search mission, having scoured 90 per cent of the focused area of interest.

Australia indicated the approach to the search might be revised with more powerful underwater vehicles if Bluefin’s search yields no results. It is mulling deploying a more powerful system that tracked the Titanic 29 years ago to locate the wreckage of the plane.

The Malaysia Airlines flight went missing more than a month ago, but search officials are yet to find anything that would confirm the fate of the plane.

MH370: Object found on Australian coast not from missing plane

AP In this map provided on Wednesday by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, details are presented in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean. A metal object found on a beach in Western Australia does not belong to the missing Malaysian jet, authorities said on Thursday

A metal object found on a beach in Western Australia does not belong to a Malaysian jet that vanished nearly seven weeks ago, authorities said on Thursday as a robotic mini-submarine scouring the Indian Ocean seabed scanned more than 90 per cent of the focused search area.

Detailed pictures of the object were enough to convince investigators that it wasn’t a lead in the search for the plane, the Australian agency leading the search for the aircraft said.

“We’ve carefully examined detailed photographs that were taken for us by the police, and we’re satisfied that it’s not a lead in terms of the search for MH370.” Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) spokesman Martin Dolan said.

Australia’s joint agency co-ordination centre announced on Wednesday that police had taken possession of an object 10km from the town of Augusta. Malaysian officials were provided with photographs of the object.

The find in Western Australia came shortly after the suspension of the air and underwater search for the plane due to poor weather conditions.

Possible promising leads have turned out to be false alarms for weeks in the lengthy search for the Boeing 777-200 which disappeared mid-flight on March 8 with 239 people, including five Indians, aboard. One major challenge that is complicated the search is that the ocean is full of garbage.

Other objects spotted in the Indian Ocean earlier turned out to be trash, jellyfish and fishing gear.

Inclement weather and ex-tropical cyclone Jack, which is moving south across the Indian ocean, may delay the resumption of the search today.

“Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totalling approximately 49,567 square kilometres. The centre of the search area lies approximately 1,584 kilometres north west of Perth,” according to Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC).

The focused underwater search area to locate the black box is defined as a circle of 10km radius where four acoustic signals were detected.

The remote submersible Bluefin-21 is conducting an underwater search mission, having scoured 90 per cent of the focused area of interest.

Australia indicated the approach to the search might be revised with more powerful underwater vehicles if Bluefin’s search yields no results. It is mulling deploying a more powerful system that tracked the Titanic 29 years ago to locate the wreckage of the plane.

The Malaysia Airlines flight went missing more than a month ago, but search officials are yet to find anything that would confirm the fate of the plane.

Cyclone batters Australia's Great Barrier Reef coast

SYDNEY: A tropical cyclone battered Australia's Barrier Reef coast Saturday, knocking out power and phone lines for thousands of people as officials warned the storm "continues to be a threat" despite weakening in force.

Tens of thousands of people hunkered down overnight as strong gales and heavy rains lashed the far north but no deaths or major destruction was reported as cyclone Ita was downgraded to a category one storm.

Ita crossed the coast near Cape Flattery late Friday as a category four storm packing winds up to 230 kilometres per hour (140 miles per hour), tearing off roofs and uprooting trees.

Queensland state Premier Campbell Newman said several thousand people across the far north had lost electricity and warned that cylone Ita "continues to be a threat" as it tracked south across the state.

"I am greatly relieved at this time that we have no reports of either death or injury," he told a press conference, while urging people to stay indoors or in shelters "until this is properly over".

A state cabinet meeting was underway to organise the clean up operation and assess how quickly electricity and communication lines could be restored, the premier said.

Cyclone warnings remained in force for coastal areas from Cape Flattery to Cardwell, including Cooktown and the major Barrier Reef resorts of Port Douglas and Cairns, 1,700 kilometres (1,060 miles) north of Brisbane.

Roofs were ripped off two homes and a pub in the coastal resort of Cooktown where several trees were uprooted during the night, officials said.

Large parts of the 1,000 strong Aboriginal community of Hope Vale and Cooktown, population 2,400, had lost power.

The storm was downgraded from the strongest category five before it made landfall Friday night.

At 11:00 am (0100 GMT Saturday) the Bureau of Meteorology said Ita had weakened to a category one and was 115 kilometres northwest of Cairns and moving south at 11 kilometres an hour.

- Still packing a fair punch -

Winds gusting up to 120 kilometres per hour were forecast to hit towards Port Douglas on Saturday, with gusts up to 100kph as far south as Cairns and surrounding inland areas.

Tropical storms are common in northeastern Australia.

Before weakening offshore, Ita had threatened to be stronger but not as widespread as the monster Cyclone Yasi system that tore through the region just over three years ago, ripping homes from their foundations and devastating crops.

The Bureau of Meteorology also warned of heavy rainfall possibly leading to flash flooding and coastal inundation from a storm surge.

Cooktown Mayor Peter Scott told Australian Associated Press he felt relieved as he had feared waking to widespread devastation.

"There's a lot of vegetation on the road and we've unfortunately seen some buildings damaged," he said.

"But there hasn't been a lot of structural damage."

Local resident Diana Spiker spent the morning walking her dog and had also expected far worse.

"They were talking about a category five at one stage so I thought there would have been a lot more damage," she said.

The bureau's Ken Kato said Ita could be further downgraded to a tropical low.

He expected the cyclone to head out "into the Coral Sea somewhere off the north tropical coast" on Sunday or Monday.

"But it's still packing a fair punch," Mr Kato added.

Meanwhile, the bureau issued a severe weather warning with strong winds and large waves for the Sydney region.

Gusts peaking at 100 kph were predicted to hit the southeastern coastal areas Saturday as a low pressure system developing off New South Wales deepens before moving inland towards the Hunter Valley in the afternoon.

Tremors hit Chile coast

Strong tremors were recorded on the northern coast of Chile late Wednesday, a day after a powerful quake triggered tsunami warnings along the South American seaboard.

A magnitude 7.6 quake was recorded at 23:43 local time (0243 Thursday GMT) 19 km south of the city of Iquique, around 1,850 kilometres north of Santiago, the US Geological Survey said.

A new tsunami warning was issued for the Chilean coast north of Antofagasta, around 1,100 kilometres north of Santiago, the National Seismological Centre (CSN) said.

The alert was cancelled after waves of less than 1 metre reached the shore of Peru and northern Chile.

President Michele Bachelet was evacuated from her hotel close to the shore in Arica, just south of the Peruvian border, where she was visiting areas affected by Tuesday’s quake that left six dead.