Until this moment, these words have become a reality and according to official reports, 76 people have been killed and approximately 20 trillion tomans of damage has been inflicted. The Minister of Roads and Urban Development says that 11,000 technical structures (including bridges and waterways) and 725 bridges have either been destroyed or have suffered significant damage.

Out of that 20 trillion tomans, the Ministry of Roads has a share of 3.25 trillion tomans in damages and the Ministry of Agriculture has a share of 13 trillion tomans. (1) And these numbers must also include damages to water and electricity infrastructure, damages to oil facilities and residential units in cities and villages that have either been destroyed or require reconstruction. Villages that have been completely wiped out and nothing remains.

Perhaps at first glance, the number of official casualties in this year’s Norooz flood disaster may seem like a small number. Especially for a nation that lost 21,000 people in traffic accidents alone during last year’s Norooz. (2) However, it seems that this number may not be accurate. There are villages in certain areas of Lorestan province that have not been registered as urban areas. This information can be obtained from talking to current or past residents of this province. These are villages that only faced ballot boxes during elections, and for the rest of the year, it was as if they didn’t exist for the governorship, prefecture, and district offices. Among these villages are those that have completely disappeared. There are villages that had no idea about the disaster that was about to strike them and suddenly found themselves facing a massive amount of water. And this water was not just water. It was mud, and the nature of this mud is that, due to its

A country in Europe called the Netherlands. Half of its land is only a few feet (each foot is thirty and a half centimeters) above sea level and the rest of the country is below sea level. However, for years it has not been affected by floods and even with heavy rainfall, more than half of the country has not been affected. It should be noted that Iran is considered one of the hot and dry regions of the world and the lowest point on the Iranian plateau is in the Lut Desert, which is 117 meters above sea level. (3) But a flood, even though it covers 20 provinces of the country, brings such a disaster upon it. Shouldn’t we ask what the reason for this vulnerability is? And what has happened to Iran that it is so weak and fragile in the face of this issue?

Definitely, no writer claims to be able to address all the reasons related to this issue in one article. But perhaps in a general overview, a few specific issues can be highlighted.

One of the main issues is the crisis of management. Crisis headquarters and unexpected incident headquarters are the first places to be caught off guard. For years, experts and scientists in the fields of environment, water, and watershed have been warning that a crisis is imminent and a serious problem will occur. However, management institutions in Iran do not take action until they see the event with their own eyes and do not feel the danger. Even when relevant institutions, such as the meteorological organization, warn that, for example, there is going to be an excessive amount of rainfall in a year in a certain region, the respected governor – in this case the governor of Golestan, Mr. Manaf Hashemi – says, “Our assumption was that everything was under control. We had gathered the best conditions for the governorship. With the permission of the Minister, we had taken a day or two off.”

It means that the governor, who is in charge of the main command in the province at the time of the incident, based on his own understanding and not expert opinion, assumes that the work has been done and passes on the responsibility to the next ranks and goes on a trip outside the country for vacation. In this interview with Eghtesad 24, Mr. Manaf Hashemi says, “We did not think that the 5-day rainfall would reach Aq Qala in North Khorasan.” (4) It is true that unexpected rainfall may occur, or it can be considered that meteorological predictions may have a small percentage of error; however, the governor’s reasoning at the time of the disaster, based on his thinking, does not make sense in any managerial logic.

This lack of management is not just a specific issue with floods and the behavior of the country’s managers. We also face the same problem in earthquakes. The same goes for the tragedy of the Plasco building fire. It always happens, managers are caught off guard in the first phase and then try to fix the situation, not before it happens but after it happens.

Another issue is the destruction of soil and nature that can be seen in the past three decades. Inappropriate policies in the water and watershed management, numerous dam constructions such as the Gotvand Dam in Khuzestan province which has destroyed thousands of palm trees, uncontrolled and excessive activities throughout the year that have led to the destruction of the country’s primary pastures and turned the green soil into a barren one that is washed away by water, causing floods that destroy people’s homes. The amount of mud we saw in the usual and Shahdokhter Bridge is all the result of this disaster and injustice to nature. We must also add the disregard for the boundaries and beds of rivers. When, over the years, due to drought or low water levels, these boundaries and beds are not respected and various structures are built in this path, with or without permission from supervisory bodies, we should also expect that when these boundaries and beds are supposed to perform their duty and let the water

Another example of this natural disaster is the filling of the canal next to the Quran Gate in Shiraz. If that natural canal, which has been the result of years of floods in the area known as “Sailabad”, was not filled, nothing would have happened to the Quran Gate and the Norouz travelers who were enjoying themselves in its vicinity. In fact, the natural floods of the Allah Akbar Strait in that area followed their own path. (6) A path that had been moving for thousands of years. But human efforts to destroy the soil and natural waterways resulted in such a disaster.

And all of these issues must also include the issue of land subsidence. The destruction of underground water resources not only creates terrifying subsidence on the surface of the country, but also causes that during floods, such as when there is no underground water bed for storage and the natural underground water reservoirs that have been created over thousands of years are destroyed due to improper exploitation, the water, instead of seeping into the ground and reducing its intensity, is further intensified by washing away the soil and raising suspended particles, making its force even greater and its destruction more devastating. The suspended particles that rise higher also increase the mass of the moving fluid and, depending on its speed, its impact will be even more catastrophic.

Another point, however, regarding our people and residents of our land, is general distrust. Towards the government and warnings from official institutions. Decades of lies and deceit from rulers, decades of false and incorrect news, decades of attempts to rule with a power-hungry system have caused the social body to no longer have trust in the government. This lack of trust is evident in such events. The meteorology department, governor’s office, district office, and village head were all shouting for people to evacuate and leave, but no one moved from their place. Furthermore, the history of disastrous government in helping and assisting people in compensating for damages caused by natural disasters also makes people unwilling to leave their homes and lives to protect themselves.

In a world known as the civilized world, insurance or the government – depending on the ruling system – assume the responsibility to help those affected by natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, and to provide shelter for those who have lost their homes as soon as possible. They also try to provide the minimum necessities for those whose lives have been destroyed. However, the history of the Islamic Republic’s rule in the face of natural disasters, from the Bam earthquake to Varzaghan and Kermanshah, shows that after the disaster and after one or two months have passed, no one will pay attention to the victims. This has been evident in recent years and is not uncommon. In this situation, whether living in a village or a city, where one’s whole life is a house, its belongings, and possibly a car, livestock, and land, one is willing to risk their life and not let go of what they have. Because the assumption is that after the event, no one will ask

Add to these problems the bad weather situation in Iran, which when repeatedly announces incorrect conditions, loses public trust and no one pays attention to its warnings; it is assumed that what they say is not true.

Another issue is the lack of awareness among people about the impending event. During this year’s Nowruz and in the absence of widespread newspapers, the responsibility of informing the public fell on the shoulders of the national media. However, it seems that the media, which should be national and, of course, patriotic, assumes that if it reveals what is going to happen, the authority of the system will be jeopardized. In fact, it believes that if it tells the people that a flood is coming and how they can protect themselves and what they should do, the foundations of the system’s authority will be shaken and the constant image of insecurity and disaster, except for our country under our rule, will be violated. Unfortunately, the national media did not perform well at the beginning of this year’s flood incident. And when forced to cover all aspects, it revealed what should not have happened.

In the face of a disaster like a flood, it pours from the land and time for the people of Iran. Incompetent managers, destroyed land and nature, and lack of trust in the government and public ignorance. Everyone joins hands to turn a manageable flood that could have been greatly reduced in its consequences into a national disaster that will affect and destroy the lives of a large part of our people for years to come. In fact, what happened was more than a flood of water, it was a flood of time. It could have been an earthquake that shook a large area of the country. It could have been a volcano that has been reactivated after millennia, or any other factor. This year’s flood showed that if rulers argue that Western powers and neighboring rivals are trying to undermine the situation in the region and strike a blow to Iran’s national interests, it is the rulers of the country who have already undermined the situation with their disastrous performance. They have built a house that collapses with a

Notes:

1. Flood damage in Iran: 76 deaths and 20 trillion tomans in damages, Deutsche Welle, 28 Farvardin 1398.

2. Number of fatalities in Nowruz accidents of 97, Mashregh News, 22 Farvardin 1397.

3. The lowest point of the Iranian plateau has been identified, Mehr, 8 Dey month 1392.

4. The governor’s statements have returned from outside Golestan, Economy 24, March 3, 2019.

5. The return of the Karun River, Mana, April 8th, 2019.

6. Important details of human errors that caused the devastating flood in Shiraz, ILNA, 8 Farvardin 1398.

7. Mahjoob, Nikoo, and Seel in Iran; a decade of destruction, a decade of promises for reconstruction, BBC Persian, April 14, 2019.