Iran suffers '$ 2bn' flood damages
TEHRAN 14 Apr (ANA) - Floods in Iran have killed 76 people and caused more than $ 2.2bn in damages in recent weeks, with flood warnings still in place for large swaths of the country.
Six more people were confirmed dead in the country's south, according to a new toll published on Sunday.
"With the death of five people in the Khuzestan province and another person in Ilam province, the death toll has now reached 76," since March 19, a statement by the coroner's office said.
The two southwestern provinces are the latest to be overwhelmed by floods that first hit the northeast of the usually arid country, forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate from cities and villages.
Officials have again issued flood warnings for the east of Iran, with heavy rains that began on Saturday forecast to continue.
Since mid-March, flash floods have hit 25 of Iran's 31 provinces, forcing mass evacuations, ravaging infrastructure, and inflicting heavy losses on the agricultural sector.
"Twenty-five provinces and more than 4,400 villages across the country were affected by the floods," Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli told parliament, according to the official IRNA news agency.
He said the damages amount to between 300 and 350 trillion rials - between $ 2.2bn and $ 2.6bn at the free market rate.
Transport Minister Mohammad Eslami meanwhile told government officials that "725 bridges have been totally destroyed."
"More than 14,000 kilometres of roads have been damaged," he said, according to IRNA.
The head of Iran's meteorology service told the same parliamentary session that the floods do not necessarily mean that a decades-long drought has ended.
"The recent floods were due to climate change and global warming," Sahar Tajbakhsh said.(ANA)
FA/ANA/14 April 2019--------