Muscat: The death toll from last Wednesday’s heavy rains in different parts of Oman has reached 12 after Roayl Oman Police (ROP) rescue teams found a body in the bushes in Qurum Wadi behind a commercial centre on Friday evening.
The identity of the person whose body was found was not revealed by the police but was said to be a 40-year-old Omani citizen. He was reported missing by his family since the Wednesday rains. Some of the labourers, working on a construction site near the wadi, reported to the rescue teams, combing the area with sniffer dogs, that they had seen the man being swept away on Wednesday, according to a police source.
The body was found trapped in mangroves in the path of wadi. “He was swept away in flash flood in wadi but his body stopped behind the commercial centre due to mangroves,” a spokesperson for the police said. The police are still combing the path of the wadi that had proved deadly for many during the tropical cyclone Gonu in 2007.
Meanwhile, the ROP have rescued 42 families who were marooned by floodwaters from Wadi Darbat in Taqah after heavy rains that followed cyclone Keila inundated the entire southern region.
The rescued people were provided with tents, food, blankets, and medical aid.
A man was plucked to safety when his vehicle got stuck in one of the wadis in the Shaleem W’al Halaniyat area in the south.
