Iran Press/Iran news: Relief operations are underway in western and northwestern Iranian to open up blocked roads affected by heavy snowfall. Authorities say rescue teams have been dispatched to a key road in northern Iran where heavy snowfall has stranded thousands of motorists and individuals.
Heidar Mataei, an official in Iran’s road transportation organization said all passenger vehicles trapped on the Qazvin-Rasht Highway due to a traffic jam caused by heavy snow will be helped to get going by late night on Tuesday.
Earlier reports in the Iranian media suggested that the late-winter snowfall and strong winds had dumped one meter of snow on the northernmost parts of the road near Rasht, which is the capital of the northern Gilan province.
Others said the storm had left nearly 100,000 homes and businesses in Rasht, a city of more than 700,000 people, without electricity while causing outages in telephone and mobile communications.
In the northwestern province of West Azarbaijan, six meters of snow had fallen on the Qarah Bolagh district.
The heavy snowfall blocked the Mahabad-Bukan road in the northwestern province for the third day on Monday, Head of Mahabad’s Road Maintenance and Transportation Office Mohsen Khademi said.
The snowstorm has been unprecedented in the region in the past few years.
The road maintenance team rescued 25 people trapped in the snowstorm along roads in various districts of the province.
Weather conditions prevented the emergency services from reaching the cars trapped in the snow.
Also, snowfall continued until Tuesday in the provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran in northern Iran. 101/211/205
Read More:
Photo: Winter snow whitened the city of Rasht
