Air force planes helped retrieve the bodies of the victims, killed during flooding after late Monday's storm, which was accompanied by strong winds, the spokesman said, cited by the official ONA news agency.

The storm caused extensive damage to property, uprooting vegetation and cutting electricity in several regions of the sultanate.

An official from the meteorological department said Nizwa, 200 kilometres (120 miles) southwest of the capital of Muscat, received 66 millimetresinches) of rain, and warned that more was to come.

Rains in Muscat measured 23 millimetres (0.9 inches).

SPACE.WIRE