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Cyclone Mekunu neared the Arabian Peninsula on Friday as its outer bands dumped heavy rain and bent palm trees in Oman, a sign of the approaching storm's power after earlier thrashing the Yemeni island of Socotra.
Already at least 40 people, including Yemenis, Indians and Sudanese, were reported missing on Socotra, where flash floods washed away thousands of animals and cut power lines on the isle in the Arabian Sea. Officials feared some may be dead while authorities in Oman confirmed the first death in the cyclone.
The cyclone is expected to make landfall early Saturday near Salalah, Oman's third-largest city and home to some 200,000 people close to the sultanate's border with war-ravaged Yemen.