TEHRAN – Flash flooding in 17 provinces of the country has so far claimed 32 lives and left 25 people missing.

The provinces include Sistan-Baluchestan, Tehran, Fars, Kerman, Hormozgan, Qom, Semnan, Mazandaran, Yazd, East Azarbaijan, South Khorasan, Golestan, Isfahan, Bushehr, Kohgiluyeh-Boyer Ahmad, Markazi, and Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society aid workers, including 560 teams, provided relief and rescue services to 14,000 people.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society aid workers, including 560 teams, provided relief and rescue services to 14,000 people in flood-affected areas, offering emergency accommodation to 2,239 flood victims, and relocating 1,220 to safe areas, Mehdi Valipour, head of the IRCS Relief and Rescue Organization, said.

Additionally, water was pumped out of 610 flooded houses, and food items were distributed among the flood victims, he added.

There are five deaths in Sistan-Baluchestan Province, eight deaths in Tehran, and one in Markazi province. Some 11 people, including seven people in Tehran and four in Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, are also missing, and the search for them continues.

On July 23, a devastating flood in the city of Estahban, southern Fars province, left 22 people dead.

Twenty percent of areas across Iran are highly prone to flooding, Khosro Shahbazi, former head of the Forests, Range, and Watershed Management Organization, said in January 2020.

According to statistics, the average rainfall in the country in the last 50 years has been 270 mm, which has decreased by 230 mm, in other words, over the past 5 decades, the average rainfall has dropped by 40 mm.

According to the World Meteorological Organization's multiannual forecast, in the next five years, Iran’s average rainfall will decline by 75 percent, and the temperature rises by 50-75 percent compared to the long-term average.

FB/MG