Hello. I thought I would introduce myself as the person who runs newsBriefsOman at http://www.newsbriefsoman.info. My name is Sue Hutton, and I lived in Oman from 1991 to 2000. I worked in the now defunct Ministry of Water Resources. We were always aware of the potentially massive impact of intense flooding, but it's very hard to make people aware of the possibility of the dangers when they appear to happen infrequently. In fact, an event of the magnitude of Gonu is probably of the order of 1 in 100 years. We have yet to see if climate change figures in this, although UAE meteorologists point out that there is no evidence in this direction. Tropical cyclones happen.

newsBriefsOman is not an automatic aggregator. I spend quite a lot of time checking out stories on the world press listing what I think is interesting in the Headlines blog, and when time permits, making entries in the main blog. It's a person intensive task. I have been back in UK since 2000, but I loved my experience of Oman so much, that I decided to continue monitoring what was happening out there. In a sense, this is a continuation of the work I was already doing in Oman.

I wrote back to someone from the Oil Drum this morning about donating funds to any relief effort. At the time of writing, there has been no call for financial aid. The infrastructure for charitable assistance is in its infancy in Oman. The Oman Charitable Organisation, chaired by the Minister of Legal Affairs, is a quasi-government institution.

BankMuscat has promised RO3 in aid, that's around £12m. If I hear anything else, I can let you know.

Thank you for reproducing the satellite image. I haven't been able to look at it fully, but my first impressions are that huge floods have through to the creek on the east of the town, and swept out to sea on the west where the coast road leading towards Qalhat, the site of the LNG plant, is obviously broken.

Agriculture around Sur is likely to have been limited. It's a sea-faring and fishing port predominantly. Without a comparable 'before' photo, it's hard to say whether dwellings and settlements have been affected by the alluvium brought down by the floods. Let's just hope that there was no housing in those wadis.

All for now. Sue Hutton