Muscat: The death toll due to heavy rain in Oman rose to 11 with five more people were reported dead in different parts of the country.
Two brothers, aged six and 10, drowned while playing football near a pond in Jalan Bani Bu Ali in the eastern region.
A 53-year-old Omani woman died in wadi (river) Kharim in Ibri. while five of her family members were rescued. The Civil Defence rescue team also found a body of a 24-year-old Omani woman from the same wadi after their car got stuck in flash flood on Wednesday. She was with her brother, who was rescued in time but the woman was trapped inside the car and her body was found later, the Royal Oman Police (ROP) said in a press release issued Thursday.
An unidentified body was found in a vehicle in Wadi Adai in Muscat.
The torrential rain lashed parts of Oman, mainly Muscat, for over three hours on Wednesday.
According to police, the rescue teams were kept on their toes during the downpour and managed to save more than dozen people, including two Saudi nationals trapped in flood waters in different parts of the country.
The police have advised residents to be on guard and not to cross flooded wadis. They have also urged residents not to leave any electrical wires exposed in the rain waters.
Meanwhile, Al Nahda, one of the three tertiary care hospitals run by the Ministry of Health, was shut after rain flooded the facility in the Hamriya area.
Junkyard
"The hospital and most of the medicine was destroyed in flooding," a staff at the hospital said.
The parking lot of Al Nahda Hospital resembled a junkyard as cars were stacked on each other after they were washed away in the floodwaters.
The Royal Oman Police had to bring in a helicopter to move a patient, who was operated on Wednesday morning, to the Royal Hospital.
With the forecast of light to moderate rain in Muscat, most residents called off their outdoor plans. However, till late afternoon it was bright and sunny.
