MP: Security officials predicted the flood two months ago

Mohammad Dehghan, deputy head of the "Provincial Representatives" faction in the parliament, announced that security officials had warned senior government officials, including the Ministry of Energy, in writing about the risk of flooding in early February of last year.

According to Mehr News Agency, the MP, who had traveled to the flood-affected areas in Khuzestan Province to investigate the situation and causes of the flooding, wrote in a letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani that despite this warning, "no preparations or actions have been taken by these authorities to prevent the flooding, at least not in a timely manner, to empty the dams."

This letter was published by Mehr News Agency on Thursday, May 25.

He stated that the source of his news was "collective statements from experts and some received information," adding: "The emergence of the phenomenon of rain clouds and flood clouds has been evident to experts since at least January 2018, and according to received news, the risk of flooding was warned in writing by security officials to senior government officials, including the Ministry of Energy, in early February 2018."

The MP lamented that "the government chose the easiest path in the face of the flood," writing that the government, by announcing the necessity of evacuating six cities and 400 villages, closed down administrative agencies and, at times, left the people alone in the face of the flood.

Previously, images and videos posted on social media indicated that people were building their own dams.

Also, some of these films criticized the performance of executive agencies in relation to the flood or providing assistance to flood victims.

Meanwhile, according to the Student News Agency, Fereydoun Hassanvand, head of the Parliament's Energy Commission, said on April 15: "About two months before the flood, the Ministry of Energy was notified of the danger, but no action was taken, and accordingly, the defendant is the first in line."

He added: "Also, security officials wrote a letter in the first week of February regarding the flood and unfortunate events, which the President referred to Reza Ardakanian, the Minister of Energy, and the Minister of Energy also wrote that it was noted, but no action was taken. If all these issues are true, the prime suspect in these incidents is the Minister of Energy and his team."

According to Mehr News Agency, Mohammad Dehghan also criticized the Ministry of Energy in his letter to the President of Iran and the Speaker of the Parliament for "not fulfilling its legal duty to protect the riverbeds and privacy of the province's rivers over the past years."

He added: "Illegal construction along the rivers of the province (Khuzestan), issuing permits for the construction of buildings deep in the riverbeds by some mayors, and indiscriminate construction within the boundaries of the rivers have become one of the factors exacerbating the damage to the people of this province."

The deputy head of the parliamentary faction of provincial representatives, referring to "the neglect of dredging dams and rivers of Karun and Karkheh, the failure to dredge artificial streams and canals, and the failure to create a network for collecting runoff," added that this situation has led to a reduction in the capacity of dams and rivers, a decrease in the speed of water flow, a rise in water levels, and the submersion of agricultural lands and rural homes.

Mohammad Dehghan also considered one of the most important problems of the cities and villages of Khuzestan Province, especially the city of Ahvaz, to be the failure to empty urban sewage, and called for the emptying of sewage and immediate planning for the construction of a sewage treatment plant in order to prevent the occurrence and spread of diseases.

The MP further emphasized the need to complete the unfinished Bakhtiari Dam with a capacity of several billion cubic meters of water.

Another topic mentioned in Mohammad Dehghan's letter to Hassan Rouhani and Ali Larijani is compensation for damage caused by the flood. Noting that the main income of the people of Khuzestan comes from agriculture, farming, and livestock farming, he added: "The agricultural lands of Khuzestan have been submerged and their products, which are all the property of the people, have been almost completely destroyed."

He called on the government, especially the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad, to provide the fodder needed by the livestock of Khuzestan Province from the five percent of the credit related to unforeseen events, which is about 24 trillion tomans, and to immediately pay a percentage of the damages caused by the floods to the farmers and livestock keepers of this province.

Previously, Iran Newspaper wrote in mid-April that Khuzestan Province had the "first place in damage" in the recent floods.

In this regard, reports indicate damage of hundreds of billions of tomans to the agricultural sector in Khuzestan province.

On Wednesday, May 24, ISNA news agency reported, quoting Gholam Abbas Bahramiya, Director General of Khuzestan's Road Administration and Transportation, that the flood caused 645 billion tomans worth of damage to the province's road infrastructure.

Also, Amir Hossein Nazari, head of the Khuzestan Industry, Mine and Trade Organization, told IRNA on Thursday: The initial estimate of flood damage to small industrial units in Khuzestan province is 500 billion tomans.

Source: Radio Farda