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Chapala is now headed westward and is expected to make landfall along the coast of Yemen. Some estimates expect at least a year’s worth of rain (on average the area gets about four inches) as a result of this single storm.
While the cyclone is expected to lose steam as it hits the mainland, weakening to a Category 1 storm, heavy rains could bring flooding and landslides to the arid country. But the cyclone had since lost strength and was expected to weaken into a tropical depression during the next 12 hours.
This means the storm could bring winds of up to 230 kmh (143 mph) and dump as much as eight times the annual rainfall on coastal regions of Oman and Yemen by early Monday morning, the United Nations’ climate agency said on Saturday night.
“More than 80 houses were damaged on the coast of Socotra and hundreds of people were rescued and hospitalised”, Salem Zaher, the mayor of Hadibou, the island’s main town, told. He also indicated that the last cyclone to strike Yemen was Keila in 2011, which was equivalent to only a weak tropical storm.
The US Navy’s Pearl Harbor-based Joint Typhoon Warning Centre said the storm had reached maximum gusts of 240 km per hour, equivalent to a category 4 hurricane.
In the provincial capital Mukalla, which has largely been ruled by Al Qaeda fighters since the army withdrew in April, water submerged cars on city streets and caused dozens of families to flee to a hospital for fear of rock slides.
Hurricane Chapala looks like a new wound to Yemen, a poor country already ravaged by months of conflict between government forces and Houthis militia, supported by Arab coalition led by neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System said that up to 390,000 people could be affected by the wind speeds, and 3,500 people residing in coastal areas could be affected by storm surge.
Chapala is likely the strongest cyclone to impact the island in over 100 years.
It is believed to be the most powerful storm to hit Yemen in decades.
“Many people have left their homes and are seeking refuge in schools”.
Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Chapala could be the first storm to make landfall over Yemen as a Category 1 storm or greater since records began in 1945.
