Middle East: Active cyclone season in 2018 highlights risks
Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Mar 2019
The Arabian Peninsula last year experienced its most active tropical cyclone season since 1992, said Willis Re in its report, ‘Summary of Natural Catastrophe Events 2018 - Insured losses and economic impact due to natural disasters’.
The season saw the region’s most intense tropical cyclone on record – Cyclone Mekunu. This was accompanied by a total of six other tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean.
While the total impact is still being fully assessed, the events highlight some crucial considerations for cyclone risk in the region – primarily the potential for record-breaking wind and rainfall intensities, as well as the possibility of successive storms bringing damage to already hard-hit areas, said Willis Re.
The occurrence of damaging and deadly landfalls like Mekunu stresses the need for adequate loss quantification methodologies, better preparedness and adequate risk transfer mechanisms to support the communities and economies within the region.
Mekunu’s impact
Cyclone Mekunu made landfall on 25 May near Salalah, Oman’s third-largest city. With peak one-minute sustained wind speeds of 185 km/h, the storm caused widespread damage in parts of southern Oman and Yemen. Like the storm of May 1959, much of the damage caused by Mekunu resulted from the vast precipitation accompanying its movement over the Arabian Peninsula. Within five days, Mekunu had deposited over 600mm of rainfall in Salalah, the equivalent of over four times the annual average.
Data from the Capital Market Authority of Oman puts the insured impact from Mekunu at $403m, a loss not unprecedented in the region’s history despite the cyclone’s record-setting intensity. Cyclone Gonu of 2007 (which, until Mekunu, held the record for the strongest storm to strike the Arabian Peninsula) is still considered Oman’s most costly natural disaster with insured losses of $650m. M