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Raeisi orders follow-up on relief operations in flood-hit south as eight die

Rescue workers try to help pull a car out of flood waters in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Balouchestan Province.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi has ordered his energy minister to visit the country’s provinces hardly hit by floods and follow up on the relief operations underway in the affected areas.

Raeisi on Tuesday instructed Ali-Akbar Mehrabian to draw up a report on the latest measures taken to help people in the southern province of Hormozgan as well as Sistan and Balouchestan Province in the southeast.

Meanwhile, the chief of staff of the president’s office Gholam-Hossein Esmaeili made contacts on behalf of President Raeisi with the governors of the provinces of Fars, Sistan and Baluchestan, Hormozgan and Kerman to pursue the process of aid provision to people as soon as possible.

In the phone calls, the governors were tasked with estimating the damage inflicted on the residential areas so that the next cabinet meeting could decide on how to compensate people for their losses.

At least eight people have been killed and over a dozen others injured in rain-triggered flash floods in southern Iran, while heavy rains are expected to last until later this week.

“In the aftermath of the downpours and floods of the past few days in the southern regions of the country, we have seen an increase in casualties and deaths,” IRNA quoted the spokesman for Iran’s emergency services Mojtaba Khaledi, as saying on Tuesday.

“So far eight people have unfortunately died and two are still missing,” Khaledi said, adding that 14 others had been injured in the southern provinces.

Head of the crisis management office of Fars Province Rahim Azadi also told IRNA that five of the deaths occurred in this province.

Over 500 teams have been dispatched to the flood-hit areas for rescue and relief operations.

Iran’s Red Crescent has “provided emergency accommodation for more than 3,000 people, and over 20,000 have received relief assistance,” its head of rescue and emergency operations Mehdi Valipour told state television.

“Houses have been flooded and infrastructure such as roads and communication systems have been damaged,” he said.


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