Heavy snow Archives - Iran News Daily

Heavy snowfall in Gilan left 7 dead, 85 injured

reporter 1222 — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 13:15:31 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – At least seven people have been killed and 85 others injured in the heavy snowfall and avalanches in Iran’s northern Gilan province.

At least seven people died and 85 injured due to heavy snowfall and an avalanche incident that hit Gilan province in northern Iran, according to reports.

The heavy snowfall in Gilan, with a height of up to 1.5 meters in some areas, created serious problems for the residents of at least 52 cities of the province, such as power cuts in almost all areas including the provincial capital of Rasht.

The power access of 256,000 people in Gilan was cut, but the Energy Ministry has managed to restore the access for some 50,000.

The snow started on Sunday evening in the western part of the province and spread to the central and eastern parts on Monday and Tuesday.

Despite earlier predictions, the Crisis Management and roads officials were surprised as many major routes, including the Tehran-Rasht Freeway, were blocked and people were stranded in the snow-blanketed roads for more than a day.

Power, water, gas, and internet cuts have also exacerbated the situation for the people of this province.

Now the weather forecasts say it will get warmer as of Wednesday, but that will increase the risk of flooding and avalanche in mountainous areas.

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Emergency Aid Underway to Northern Iran

reporter 1222 — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 12:19:09 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ordered the administrative organizations to mobilize efforts to aid the people in the northern provinces of Iran suffering in heavy snowfall.

In a weekly session of the cabinet on Wednesday, President of Iran ordered the ministries of Roads and Urban Development, Energy, Information and Communications Technology, and Interior to mobilize all their capacities to expedite the aid and rescue service work and relieve the problems caused by the heavy snowfall in the northern provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran.

The president also assigned Head of Iran’s Planning and Budget Organization Mohammad Bagher Nobakht as his representative, ordering him to visit the crisis-hit areas in order to address the problems after meetings with the people and local officials.

The spokesperson for Iran’s National Emergency Service said five people have been killed in an avalanche triggered by heavy snow in the province of Gilan.

He added that 2 more people were killed in Rasht, the capital of Gilan province, and 78 others injured due to extreme weather conditions and snow-related incidents across the province.

Rescue teams have been dispatched to a key road north of the country where heavy snowfall has stranded thousands of people.

An official in Iran’s road transportation organization said on Tuesday that all passenger vehicles trapped on the Qazvin-Rasht Highway due to a traffic jam caused by snow would be helped to move from the road by late night.

Earlier reports in the Iranian media suggested that the snowfall and strong winds had dumped one meter of snow on the northernmost parts of the road near Rasht.

Others said the storm had left nearly 100,000 homes and businesses in Rasht, a city of more than 700,000 people, without power while causing outages in telephone and mobile communications.

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Avalanche in Turkey Kills 38

reporter 1222 — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 05:28:28 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – An avalanche slammed into a mountain road in eastern Turkey on Wednesday, wiping out a huge team of rescue workers sent to find people missing in an earlier avalanche. Officials said 33 emergency workers were killed, 53 were injured and others were buried under the snow.

Wednesday’s avalanche in Turkey increased the overall death toll from the disaster to 38, AP reported.

Some 300 emergency service workers were called to a highway near the mountain-surrounded town of Bahcesaray in Van Province, which borders Iran after an avalanche struck late Tuesday. That snow slide killed five people and left two missings. Around noon Wednesday, the team was struck by the second avalanche.

Turkey’s emergency and disaster management agency, AFAD, said 33 bodies were recovered from the mass of snow on the steep slope. Earlier, Gov. Mehmet Emin Bilmez said the dead included eight military police officers, three government-paid village guards, three firefighters, and nine volunteers.

Emergency teams were still searching for other colleagues under the snow, Bilmez said. He did not provide a figure of how many more could be missing.

Some 30 emergency workers were either pulled out of the heap of snow or escaped themselves and were hospitalized Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said.

Video from the scene showed at least three overturned vehicles at the bottom of a hill during a snowstorm. Some rescuers struggled to climb out of a steep incline while others dug frantically into the snow with shovels and pick-axes. Fog, heavy snow, and strong winds hampered the rescue efforts.

The head of AFAD’s operations in Van Province, Osman Ucar, was among those injured. Speaking from his hospital bed, he said he was dragged along with an excavator that was toppled by the sliding snow.

“I was half-buried,” he said, adding that he escaped on his own.

The first avalanche buried a snow-clearing vehicle and a minibus. The vehicle’s operator and seven passengers escaped alive.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said the driver, Bahattin Karagulle, was trapped beneath the snow for 25 minutes before he managed to break a window and escape. He walked toward a village to get help before being picked up by a passing vehicle.

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Tehran snow shuts schools, flights delayed

reporter 1222 — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 10:45:33 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Heavy snow covered the streets of Tehran on Sunday morning, causing major flight delays and forcing the closure of schools, authorities in the Iranian capital said.

AFP correspondents said the snow started falling early in the Sunday morning and disrupted the flow of traffic on some of the city’s main highways and hampered transportation.

“We knew that it would snow as of last night and that it naturally affects traffic and schools,” head of Tehran Traffic Police Mohammad-Reza Mehmandar told state television.

“On some highways in the north (of Tehran), there was a bit of ice… and accidents were responded to as quick as possible,” he added.

Schools in all the districts of Tehran City and some parts of the province were closed in both morning and the afternoon due to the heavy snowfall.

“Flights at Mehrabad will go ahead but with delays due to the lack of proper vision,” said Reza Jafarzadeh, spokesman for Iran’s aviation authority.

But flights were still going according to schedule at Imam Khomeini International Airport, despite the heavy snowfall in Tehran, he added.

Based on Iranian news broadcasting forecasts ion snowfall to continue until Monday in Tehran and other northern provinces.

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