(Hilla) At least three people, including a woman, were electrocuted in central Iraq in three separate crashes on Wednesday during heavy rains that battered the entire country, a source said. a medical official on Thursday.
Aged 16, 22 and 30, the three victims died of electrocution in different sectors of the province of Babylon, explained to AFP doctor Ahmed Sabbah, director of the forensic institute of Hilla, capital of Province.
The victims had all come out to cut off the electrical current that supplies their homes, he said, fearing that the strong current fluctuations, caused by the weather, could damage their household appliances.
Babylon, along with much of the country, was hit by torrential rains and squalls on Wednesday. During the night in Hilla, the main artery was invaded by water, according to an AFP correspondent.
“Due to bad weather conditions,” Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani ordered the closure of administrations across Iraq on Thursday, except for security services and some public services.
Heavy rains also affected Kurdistan, an autonomous region in northern Iraq.
In the village of Khabat, where water seeping into stalls caused damage, residents helped by a backhoe were trying to clean up their muddy street, according to an AFP photographer.
Videos posted online showed torrents of muddy water carrying cars down roads or pouring through hilly terrain.
Iraq has been hit by drought and declining rainfall for three years. The rare rains, beneficial for the rivers and the water reserves of the dams, are welcomed with relief by the farmers.
But in a country with failing infrastructure despite the oil windfall, these precipitations also cause floods or power cuts.
According to the United Nations, Iraq is one of the five countries in the world most vulnerable to certain effects of climate change. Very often, activists deplore the absence of effective public policies to mitigate these upheavals.
At the end of February, the authorities had recognized an alarming drop in the south of the water level of the Tigris and the Euphrates, the two great mythical rivers which cross the country.
The government blames this phenomenon on the drought but above all on the dams built upstream on the two rivers by the two big neighbours, Turkey and Iran.
