At Least Eight Killed in Southern Provinces

President Orders Urgent Flood Aid

Date: 04 January 2022 - 21:57

News ID: ۹۸۵۶۹

TEHRAN – President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday ordered his energy minister to visit Iran’s southern provinces and direct relief operations after at least eight people were killed in flash floods caused by heavy rains expected to last until later this week.
The president instructed Ali-Akbar Mehrabian to draw up a report on the latest measures taken to help people in the Hormozgan, Fars and Sistan and Balouchestan provinces.
“Following the floods and rains of the past few days in the southern regions of the country, we have seen an increase in casualties and deaths,” spokesman for the national rescue service Mojtaba Khaledi said, quoted by official news agency IRNA.
“So far eight people have died and two are still missing,” Khaledi said, adding that 14 others had been injured.
Five of the deaths occurred in Fars province, local crisis management official Rahim Azadi told the news agency.
A local official had said Monday that at least two people were killed in flash flooding in the province.
Heavy rain damaged “agriculture, infrastructure, urban and rural housing”, Azadi said.
Iran’s Red Crescent has provided “emergency accommodation for more than 3,000 people, and over 20,000 have received relief assistance”, its head of rescue and emergency operations Mehdi Valipour told national television.
“Houses have been flooded and infrastructure such as roads and communication systems has been damaged,” he said, adding that more than 500 teams were providing assistance in parts of the country’s south and east.
Pictures published by the Red Crescent on Tuesday showed its personnel setting up tents in sports halls and assisting cars
trapped on flooded roads or stuck in snow-covered mountain areas.
Relief operations were underway in 87 cities across more than half of Iran’s 31 provinces, it added.
The weather system is expected to last until Friday, an official from Iran’s meteorological agency told state television.
Bad weather has been affecting not only southern Iran but also Arab countries in the Persian Gulf in recent days, with several issuing weather warnings.
Torrential rainfall has hit the United Arab Emirates, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and caused widespread flooding in the region.
Largely arid, Iran has endured repeated droughts over the past decade, but also regular floods.
In 2019, heavy flooding in the country’s south left at least 76 people dead and caused damage estimated at more than $2 billion.
Scientists say climate change amplifies droughts and that their intensity and frequency in turn threaten food security.