Thursday 26 / December / 2024
Muscat: The Ministerial Committee assessed the damages from tropical cyclone Shaheen and appreciated the efforts made to rehabilitate roads and open sub-roads to facilitate movement and speed up the restoration of basic services.
The Ministerial Committee chaired by His Excellency Sultan bin Salim Al Habsi, Minister of Finance, Chairman of the Financial and Economic Committee emanating from the Council of Ministers, reviewed during its second meeting at Suwaiq Police Station the results of field visits and preliminary assessments of the damage and the work of the shelter, relief, basic services, and public health sectors.
With regard to basic services, the committee discussed what has been achieved to restore services to all affected areas and the challenges faced by the sectors as a result of the impact on networks and facilities, and the difficulty of accessing some villages and finding alternatives to deliver these services to the most affected villages.
The basic services sector restores telecommunications services in the affected areas by providing mobile units and connecting generators to some stations. All telecommunications companies are working on finding alternative solutions that enable all subscribers to use telecommunications services.
As for the water network, the operating company restored service to all affected areas and, in cooperation with the armed forces, provided 160 tankers to transport water to the homes of the affected citizens. The Ministry of Social Development confirms that it is continuing to complete an inventory of the damage suffered by families in the affected villages, and urgent aid will be provided and some buildings will be rented for them until their situation is addressed.
Within the framework of the public health sector, several cleaning campaigns have been implemented to remove dead animals. Work is underway to drain stagnant water and ensure that water ponds are free of epidemics after taking a number of samples.
The Ministerial Committee stressed on the importance of monitoring any potential impacts and addressing them immediately, and that the urgency is to limit the impacts on the fishing and agricultural sectors.
His Excellency the Chairman of the Committee stressed on the importance of coordination with the shelter and relief sector to support volunteering operations through the offices of their excellencies, Governors and Walis and development committees in the wilayats. The individual and institutional financial support initiatives will be through the bank accounts of the Oman Charitable Organisation.
