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DUHOK, Kurdistan Region - Municipality teams in Duhok launched a major campaign to clean the city after a weekend flooding swept across the province, damaging infrastructure and killing three people.
At least 3,000 municipality workers and 80 heavy vehicles were involved in the operation.
The flooding was so severe that it was beyond the ability of residents to take matters into their own hands alone.
"As a woman from Duhok, today I decided to join arms, together with my friends and government institutions to clean Duhok neighborhoods and help those affected by the flood," Noorman Ali, a resident in Duhok, told Rudaw on Saturday. "This is a duty. This is a humanitarian duty. This is a national duty. We should share in the suffering of our people."
Volunteers from other parts of Duhok also gathered in the city to help clean it of floodwater and mud.
"As a group of young volunteers from the district of Bardarash, we have happily come to take part in this big clean-up operation... We have been cleaning these neighborhoods along with other teams since 8 am. We have come to help our people. This is our city. We will stay here until the end of the operation," Hiwa Mohammed, a volunteer from Bardarash, Duhok province, said.
On Friday alone, 80 percent of the affected neighborhoods were cleaned of litter and remains of the floods.
The torrential downpour caused flash floods that killed three people in Duhok, with the bodies of two of them remaining unaccounted for.
At least 11 other people were injured and hundreds of others were left homeless. More than 160 houses and 50 vehicles were damaged in the natural disaster.
Heavy rains also showered the Kurdistan Region’s capital of Erbil, with last Wednesday being declared a public holiday in both Erbil and Duhok provinces.
Rising water levels during the rainy seasons of fall and winter have become a common occurrence in the Kurdistan Region in recent years, at times reaching dangerous levels and resulting in casualties and massive material damage.
A wave of deadly and destructive floods swept through the Kurdistan Region in late 2021 and early 2022, with Erbil bearing the brunt of the heavy rainstorms. At least 826 families were affected by the floods, which killed 12 people, including a ten-month-old baby.
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