Ref. 99/0101
Iran - Floods
OCHA Situation Report No. 3
5 August 1999

Situation

1. Following the heavy floods of 25 and 26 July 1999 in Mazandaran Province in northern Iran, the Disaster Task Force (DTF) of the Ministry of Interior has released the following information on the impact of the disaster:

More than 100 people were injured and damages caused to various areas was estimated at 15 million dollars.

The flood in Neka in the northern Caspian Sea province of Mazandaran was unprecedented, officials said. Neka, Sari, Behshahr and 59 villages of the Mazandaran province were hit.

Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mussavi-Lari said the government would grant two million rials (6600 dollars) to each

Rescue workers are battling against time to find the remaining missing from Monday's flood, which has left more than 100 people injured.

The UN office in Tehran said the Neka River was flowing at four times the average rate for a 100-year period, indicating the epic deluge was a once-in-a-millennium occurrence.

It said more than 4,000 shops and homes

Rescue teams are continuing the search for victims of Monday's deluge, which has left another 95 people in hospital, the official IRNA news agency said.

Entire villages were washed away and thousands of homes destroyed Monday when flood waters roared through northern Iran after the heaviest rain in the region in 100 years.

Residents in the northern towns of Neka

(In late May, Bill Frelick, editor of Refugee Reports, visited refugee camps in Iran and attended a symposium for nongovernmental organizations. He reports on issues affecting refugees in Iran, including Iranian plans to launch a large-scale repatriation of Afghan refugees.)
For the better part of the past twenty years, Afghan and Iraqi refugees have been free to move about Iran to find places to live and work, often at the margins, but still able to become self sufficient and to find a niche within Iranian society.

The gathering will bring together some 20 non-governmental organizations. The foreign countries to be represented include Afghanistan, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Pakistan and Switzerland.

Several large US organizations are also expected to attend the symposium despite the fact that Tehran and Washington

Situation

1. On Friday, 7 May 1999, at 03:31 a.m. local time (23:01 GMT) a strong earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale (6.3 according to the United States Geological Survey) hit an area west of the city of Shiraz in the Province of Fars in southern Iran. Among a series of aftershocks, two other earthquakes measuring 5.4 and 4.7 followed within the next couple of hours. The tremors were felt strongly in Shiraz and Kazeron.

2. The total population of the

TEHRAN, May 7 (AFP) - At least 26 people were killed and 100 injured when a pair of strong earthquakes rocked southwestern Iran on Friday, flattening hundreds of homes and crushing sleeping villagers.

"Most of the victims were children who were unable to escape from their homes and died under the falling houses," the official IRNA news agency said, adding that the casualty toll was likely to rise.

The temblors measured 6.8 and 5.9 degrees on the Richter scale and hit at 3:30 a.m. (2300 GMT) and 3:41 a.m. (2311