Flooding in Paraguay's capital due to heavy rain

More than 20,000 families across Paraguay have been affected by severe flooding from two weeks of heavy rain that caused the country's main river to burst its banks, a senior official said Wednesday as an emergency was declared in the capital.

National Emergency Minister Joaquin Roa made the announcement as forecasters said the precipitation would continue for the rest of the week.

The Paraguay River, which runs some 1,000 kilometers north to south and splits the country in two, is expected to continue overflowing.

A 90-day emergency was declared in Asuncion on Wednesday due to the flooding. Hardest-hit are some 5,000 families living in the Banado Sur working-class neighborhood on the city outskirts.

The people affected by flooding "need sheet metal roofing, wood, and all types of help," a municipal official told AFP.

The Paraguay River flows past Asuncion and eventually merges into the Parana River in Argentina.

"We did not expect it to swell so quickly," said Pablo Ramirez, a resident of Banado Sur, a neighborhood in the capital, dismayed after returning to his home after he left it one month ago due to flooding.

Ramirez, who relies on crutches to get around following a car accident, said that he will not leave home this time. The flooding "will go by quickly," he said optimistically.

Pedro Velasco, the leading neighborhood Catholic priest, said that one week ago they warned emergency officials that the river was about to overflow and asked for trucks to deliver aid and help evacuate people.

"They didn't move until Monday, but by then it was already too late and they couldn't come in" because of the flooding, Velasco said.

Roa said that his office will deliver 400,000 of food in the next days in coordination with the Paraguayan military.

Iran flood death toll reaches 62
Tehran (AFP) April 3, 2019 - The death toll from major floods swamping much of Iran over the past 15 days has risen to 62, the head of the Iranian Legal Medicine Organisation told local media Wednesday.

Ahmad Shojaee told the semi-official Fars news agency the southern province of Fars has been hit the hardest with 21 dead.

The western province of Lorestan and the northern province of Golestan followed with 14 and 8 dead respectively, he said.

Flood-related deaths have been reported in 11 out of Iran's 31 provinces, Shojaee added.

The semi-official ISNA news agency said the current toll was a tally of the victims whose bodies have been transferred to coroner offices across the country -- indicating the count could still rise.

Iran has been hit by flooding across most of the country since March.

The country's northeast was swamped on March 19 before the west and southwest of the country were inundated on March 25, killing a total 45 people.

Flooding in the west and southwest continued on April 1 when heavy rains returned to the area.

"Seventy-eight intercity roads have been blocked, as many as 2,199 rural roads and 84 bridges have been washed away," said Behnam Saeedi, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Organisation.

"Across 15 provinces, 141 rivers burst their banks and around 400 land slides were reported," he told state TV.

The government said the flooding had damaged nearly 12,000 kilometres (7,500 miles) of roads, or 36 percent of the country's entire street network.

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'We have lost everything': Afghans describe deadly floods
Herat, Afghanistan (AFP) March 31, 2019
Villagers in western Afghanistan began cleaning up Sunday after the worst floods in a decade swept away houses and forced many families - already displaced by drought - to abandon damaged homes. Heavy rains that started early Friday and continued for two days caused flash floods in at least five provinces in western and northern parts of Afghanistan, killing at least 35 people. Aside from washing away houses, the floods destroyed some internally displaced people's shelters and cut off access ... read more