more than 80 dead in eight days in floods

More than 80 people have lost their lives and 30 are still missing in Iran, after floods that affected several regions of this largely arid country, official sources announced on Saturday July 30. Iran has suffered from repeated droughts during the past decade, but also from regular floods due to torrential rains.

Since July 23, “59 people died and 30 are missing due to flooding”, said Yaghoub Soleimani, secretary general of the Iranian Red Crescent, quoted by the official news agency IRNA. A balance sheet to which are added the 22 deaths announced on July 22 after torrential rains in the south of the country. According to Yaghoub Soleimani, 60 large cities, 140 smaller ones and more than 500 villages have been affected, in a country of 83 million inhabitants.

The province of the capital Tehran was the most affected, with 35 dead, while in that of Mazandaran, in the north of the country, 20 people have still not been found. According to state television IRIB, the Minister of Agriculture estimated the damage to the agricultural sector at some 195 million euros. And it’s not over: according to the Iranian meteorological center, the north and south of the country should be affected by new rains in the coming days.