TEHRAN (AFP) -- At least 14 people have drowned in flooding following torrential rains in northwestern Iran's Ardebil Province, the state news agency IRNA said Tuesday.

"So far 14 people have been killed in the floods, three bodies have been retrieved, but the search is going on for the rest," a local official, Malek Jafarzadeh, was quoted as saying.

State television had reported that some 700 homes were seriously damaged or destroyed and some 9,000 livestock perished as a result of heavy rains which began Monday.

With around 8,000 hectares of farmland also washed away, the cost of the damage has been put at around 150 billion rials (16 million dollars).