Country: Iran
ICHR Calls on the government of Iran to be transparence in regards of all the aid and financial help they are receiving for helping the flooded areas in the country. As well as ensuring that the aid and the financial help is effectively and evenly distributed.
From mid-March to April 2019 widespread flash flooding affected large parts of Iran, most severely in Golestan, Fars, Khuzestan, Lorestan, and other provinces. Iran has been hit by three major waves of rain and flooding over the course of two weeks, which led to flooding in at least 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces, and at least 70 people died nationwide as of April,6th, according to the officials.
The first wave of rain began on 17 March, leading to flooding in two northern provinces, Golestan and Mazandaran with the former province receiving as much as 70 percent of its average annual rainfall in single day. Several large dams have been overflowed, particularly in Khuzestan and Golestan, therefore many villages and several cities have been evacuated. About 1,900 cities and villages across country have been damaged by severe floods as well as hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to water and agriculture infrastructure. 78 roads were blocked and the reliability of 84 bridges is unknown.
Severity of the floods was greatly increased by converting flood routes and dry river beds for urban development without providing proper drainage infrastructure, and more than 140 rivers have burst their banks and about 409 landslides have happened in the country. The impact of the floods was heightened because of the Nowruz holiday; many Iranians were travelling and many deaths occurred due to flash flooding on roads and highways.
Around 12,000 km of roads were damaged by the flooding, about 36% of Iran’s national road network. The floods caused at least $2.2 billion USD in damages, mostly due to losses in the agricultural industry, and over two million people are in need of humanitarian aid due to the devastating floods.
Following this tragic flood’s in Iran EU has allocated an initial amount of €1.2 million in emergency support to assist the most vulnerable communities. As well as more aid and financial help from neighbouring countries.
But as of yet no help has been received from the government of Iran to the flooded areas.
ICHR Calls on the government of Iran to be transparence in regards of all the aid and financial help they are receiving worldwide for helping the flooded areas in the country. As well as ensuring that the aid and the financial help is effectively and evenly distributed.