ADEN: A rare tropical cyclone packing hurricane-force winds killed three people and injured scores on the exotic Yemeni island of Socotra on Monday and then headed toward a gas terminal and an Al Qaeda-controlled town on the mainland.

The World Meteorological Organization initially rated the storm, named Chapala, as “potentially very dangerous,” but later on Monday downgraded it to “very severe” as sustained winds slowed marginally to 150-160 kmh.

Maps plotting the storm’s course after Socotra showed it making landfall on Tuesday morning at Balhaf, site of Yemen’s liquefied natural gas terminal, and weakening as it advanced toward the capital Sanaa in the country’s north.

The UN humanitarian office said it expected Chapala to be mostly felt in the southern coastal governorates of Shabwah and Hadhramaut, where 1.4 million of the 1.8 million population need humanitarian aid due to Yemen’s ongoing war.

The cyclone first hit Socotra, an island of rare natural beauty with a prehistoric feel — hundreds of plant species found nowhere else on Earth — 380 km off Yemen in the Arabian Sea. Its 50,000 residents speak their own language.

Amateur pictures and videos posted on social media, which could not be immediately verified, showed torrents of water washing through the streets of the island capital Hadibu.

“Three people were killed, around 100 have been injured,” said a local official.

Mohammed Alarqbi of the Socotra Environment Office said torrential rains had pounded impoverished coastal villages. “Around 1,500 families have fled to the interior and to the mountains. There’s absolutely no help coming from the outside.”