[ad_1]
1972 wasn’t even that long ago. You or your parents may have been born that year. Therefore, it is likely that even more violent snowstorms have occurred in the past, only knowledge about it has not survived.
The geography of the disaster is also responsible, at least in part, for the high number of deaths. This snowstorm started on February 3, 1972 in Iran. Snow in Iran is not something completely invisible or very rare. The climate in Iran is very diverse, although there are places where the temperature rises to 38 ° C in summer, there are also places where winters are usually white.
But not as white as in February 1972. The blizzard would surprise even the Nordic countries: the snowfall was so strong that the snow cover could be measured in meters on the first day. In the northwestern and central parts of the country, a layer of snow about 3 meters thick was formed in a few blizzard days. In the south, it grew even faster: at the end of the blizzard, a snow cover of up to 7.9 meters was measured.
But that was only part of the problem. Since the beginning of winter, Iran has also struggled to cope with the flu epidemic. The blizzard also valued the trees, and the -25 ° C temperature was a clear sign that not all would survive such extreme weather. Still, no one expected the situation to be this bad.
There were towns that were completely buried. Rescuers who rushed after the snowstorm pulled only the frozen human bodies out of the snow. In the town of Sheklab, all 100 inhabitants died and no man survived in the town of Komero or in the Kakan region. Most of the people died in the villages, although there were also deaths in the cities due to interruptions in the supply of medicines and food.
By February 8, the snowstorm had abated and rescuers had gone to work. But already on February 11 a blizzard broke out again and the helicopters had to retreat.
In some places, boxes of food and medicine were left in the snow, in the hope that survivors would find tunnels and boxes. But in the end, it was estimated that more than four thousand people died.
Some villages disappeared completely, others later recovered.
[ad_2]
