May 20, 2022
Floods hit 73 cities in 17 of Iran’s 31 provinces over a 10-day stretch in late April and early May, the ISNA news agency reported May 6. A total of seven deaths have been reported.
Flooding normally strikes Iran in the spring as the snow in the mountains melts. Flooding has gotten worse in the last century due to the destruction of much of the forests that previously covered mountainsides and soaked up the snow melt, preventing water from cascading down to the valleys and coastal lands.
The provinces that were impacted were scattered around the country, except for the far south. They were East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Esfahan, Ilam, Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari, Khorasan North, Khorasan South, Khorasan Razavi, Zanjan, Semnan, Kerman, Kermanshah, Kohgiluyeh va Boyer Ahmad, Lorestan, Yazd and Tehran.
Twenty percent of Iran is prone to flooding, Khosro Shahbazi, former head of the Forests, Range and Watershed Management Organization (FRWMO) said in January 2020.