Severe storms and new wave of floods claim 24 lives across Iran

At least 24 people have been killed and 55 injured in a new wave of severe storms and torrential rainfall that has pounded Iran for the past two weeks. Official emergency aid was delivered to 83 cities and villages across flood-hit Iran, authorities said.

According to Mojtaba Khaledi, a spokesman for Iran's emergency services, four people were killed by flooding while another 20 lost their lives after having been struck by lightning.

55 others, Khaledi said, had been injured by severe flooding.

Morteza Salimi, head of Iran’s Relief and Rescue Organization, said emergency aid had so far been delivered to more than 2 000 people in 83 cities and villages across the country.

In March and April, at least 78 people across Iran were killed in a month-long spate of severe weather.

Floods displaced half a million people and submerged 90% of land, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) said. 

Heavy rain and floods started affecting Iran on March 19, 2019, causing massive damage to the country's agricultural sector, damaging 36% of the entire road network, destroying 84 bridges, nearly 2 200 rural roads and leaving at least 78 people dead. According to information provided by official sources, flooding has caused at least 47 trillion rials (about $350 million USD) in damage to the country's agricultural sector, as of April 4.

Starting in the northern province of Golestan and moving to the South and the West of the country, heavy rains have poured over 28 of the 31 provinces of Iran. Almost the whole country was under water, IDMC said.

Spring 2019 flash floods are the worst disaster impacting the country in over fifteen years, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.

One of the worst affected provinces was Golestan, which received approximately 70% of its annual rainfall in 24 hours, something that had not been seen in over 300 years.

Featured image credit: Iran Panorama