Heavy rainfall, flash floods cause severe damage in Duhok governorate

Hundreds of homes and shops in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok governorate were damaged on Wednesday, and dozens of cars were swept away and crushed as a result of heavy rain over the past two days.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Hundreds of homes and shops in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok governorate were damaged on Wednesday, and dozens of cars were swept away and crushed as a result of heavy rain over the past two days.

A wave of heavy rain in several areas of Duhok governorate damaged over 300 houses due to the accumulation of water which caused flash floods. The floods also caused financial losses to dozens of shops in Duhok’s main market. 

According to initial reports, the heavy rain also resulted in the collapse of four small-scale bridges connecting the city of Duhok to other districts and swept away about 30 cars inside the city.

On Monday, the Kurdistan Region’s General Directorate of Meteorology and Seismology warned against sweeping floods, flash floods, and strong winds in most of Iraq’s provinces, including Kurdistan.

On Wednesday evening, civil defense teams in Duhok rescued 21 families as flash floods swamped their houses while a dozen other citizens were saved from their vehicles unable to leave on their own.

At the same time, a 32-year-old man in Erbil city was electrocuted to death when a nearby electricity line fell in the water as his car was stuck in the flash flood.

Cars stuck on the street during flash floods in Duhok city, March 18, 2020. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)
Cars stuck on the street during flash floods in Duhok city, March 18, 2020. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)

On Thursday, Diyar Barwari, a Kurdish lawmaker in the Iraqi Council of Representatives, requested the Iraqi government to allocate funds from the emergency budget for Duhok governorate as its residents suffered severe damages due to the floods.

“Heavy rains in Duhok resulted in severe damage to homes, roads, bridges, and property,” Barwari said in a statement, noting that “the local government is unable to compensate for these damages.”

The lawmaker requested the federal government to “allocate emergency funds which are listed in the federal budget for the province of Duhok,” and also called on the local government to “apply for their share of the emergency fund as soon as possible.”

Post-rain floods are a perennial issue in the country as a whole, caused in large part by chronically inadequate infrastructure, including inefficient or poorly maintained urban rainwater management and sewage systems. 

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany