"485 villages in South Khorasan Province do not have even a drop of drinking water"

The governor of South Khorasan says that currently more than 485 villages in the province do not have even "a drop" of drinking water.

As Mohammad Mahdi Muruj Al-Shari'a announced in a meeting of a group of members of the Parliament's Agriculture Commission with the Supreme Leader's representative in this province, the drinking water needed by the people in these villages "is supplied by tankers."

According to this official, South Khorasan Province has been struggling with drought for "two decades," and the reduction in rainfall and water resources has created "specific climatic conditions" for this region.

He added that in order to "maintain and stabilize the population" in villages and areas that lack minimum drinking water, we need "another model of management and economy and securing people's livelihoods."

The executive official's statements came after it was announced in January of last year that South Khorasan is the "lowest rainfall" province in the country.

Alireza Khandanrou, Director General of Meteorology of South Khorasan, announced at the time that the province's rainfall this year had decreased by 96 percent compared to the long-term average (25 years) and by 81 percent compared to 2016.

As he reported, in terms of drought, 100 percent of South Khorasan Province is affected by drought over a seven-year period, and accordingly, 54 percent of the province's area is affected by severe drought, 35 percent by moderate drought, and 11 percent by very severe drought.

South Khorasan, with an area of ​​151,000 square kilometers, is the third largest province in Iran after Sistan-Baluchestan and Kerman. The decrease in rainfall and successive droughts have faced this region with problems including a sharp drop in groundwater levels, land subsidence, and migration.

In October 2016, Mohammad Shafiei, Director General of the Rural and Council Office of the South Khorasan Provincial Government, said that by 2011, "1,703 villages" in the province had been deserted due to drought.

Referring to the increasing trend of migration from this province, he declared that migration from the villages of South Khorasan was "much more intense" than other provinces of the country.

Tasnim News Agency also wrote in a report that in South Khorasan, "everywhere we look, we see the deep footprints of drought."

According to the report, drought has caused wells and aqueducts in South Khorasan Province to dry up, and people in villages "have no hope of living in the villages and are turning to cities and marginalized areas" due to a lack of water and fodder for livestock.

Mizan News Agency also wrote that "most villagers' occupations are animal husbandry and agriculture, but there are no livestock or crops left. The unemployment rate in South Khorasan Province is about 11 percent. Six thousand 6-year-old children in the province are malnourished... and this province ranks second and first in Iran in terms of anemia among pregnant women, six-year-old children, and adolescents, respectively."

Apart from South Khorasan Province, many other regions in Iran are also experiencing drought and water shortages due to decreased rainfall and increased temperatures.

The water shortage in the country is so severe that Iran's Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian has called this year the most difficult year in terms of water supply in the country in the last half century, warning that 334 cities with a population of 35 million people are in a state of water stress this year.

Yesterday, an executive official in Sistan and Baluchestan province announced that there is only five months of water stored in the province's dams and that currently, the "only" important issue in the province is the supply of drinking water.

As announced by Bagher Kord, the deputy governor of Sistan and Baluchestan, the total volume of water stored in the province's dams is "two billion cubic meters," and given the "increasing temperatures" in the province's cities in the coming months, this amount of water "will run out by September."

Source: Radio Farda