Friday, November 15, 2013
Crews resumed search and cleanup
operations in Somalia's Puntland following a weekend cyclone officials
said they feared killed as many as 400 people.Puntland Marine Police
Forces have been unsuccessful in attempting to transport food, tents,
medicine and blankets to the hardest hit areas because flash floods
collapsed a bridge connecting Garowe to Bossaso, Garowe Online reported
Wednesday.
Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon declared a
state of calamity in the cyclone-hit areas of Puntland, pledging $1
million to the communities churned by the tropical cyclone.
Puntland
disaster management officials said heavy rains inundated remote rural
areas and coastal towns were more severely impacted than anticipated in
the semi-autonomous state.
Abdiweli Hirsi Nour, Puntland's deputy
minister of livestock and animal husbandry, said during a news
conference Wednesday 400 families who lost livestock and belongings to
the floods had registered for assistance.
"Pastoralists in the
affected areas are really suffering; one nomadic family has lost 600
goats and sheep," Nour said. "We are yet to receive any information from
many places especially the areas on the Indian Ocean coast."
The
heavy rains affected the arrivals and departures at airports in Bossaso
and Galkayo. Puntland Civil Aviation Ministry officials told Garowe
Online the airports' gravel runways were being repaired.