Local Editor

On the same day a Saudi-led coalition dropped several airstrikes across the country in an ongoing and devastating aggression, Yemen was hit with the strongest cyclone in the country’s recorded history, dumping more than a year’s worth of rain in just 24 hours on its southern coast.

A cyclone with hurricane-force winds made landfall on Yemen’s Arabian Sea coast on Tuesday, flooding the country’s fifth-largest city Mukalla and sending thousands of people fleeing for shelter.

Officials and meteorologists say the storm is the most intense in decades in the arid country, whose storm response is hampered by poverty and a raging Saudi aggression. 

A Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States has been carrying out a military aggression on Yemen by launching airstrikes against the country since March 26. The airstrikes have not been authorized by the United Nations [UN].

In the provincial capital Mukalla, whose 300,000 people are largely ruled by al Qaeda extremists 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.

Residents said that the seafront promenade and many homes had been destroyed by the cyclone, called Chapala. There were no initial reports of injuries.

The cyclone first hit the remote Yemeni island of Socotra, killing three people and displacing thousands.

An island of natural beauty, Socotra is home to hundreds of plant species found nowhere else on Earth and lies 380 km off Yemen in the Arabian Sea.

Moreover, meteorological agencies predicted Chapala would hit land around Balhaf, the site of Yemen’s liquefied natural gas terminal, and weaken as it advanced towards the capital Sanaa in the country’s north; Reuters reported.