Warnings increase as rivers overflow and flood reaches residential areas in western and southwestern Iran.

Five villages in Ilam province and 55 villages in Khuzestan province have been ordered to evacuate. The governor of Khuzestan said on Sunday that the minister of state has agreed to declare an emergency situation in Khuzestan province.

With the emergency situation, all the new year vacation time for government’s crisis center employees will be suspended until the conditions return to normal.

According to the governor, out of the 55 villages that need to be evacuated, 35 are near Karoun and Dez rivers and 20 are near the Karkheh river and they are all facing a serious threat of flood.

He continued that some of these villages have been evacuated and the rest are in the process of evacuation.

The oil-rich province of Khuzestan is in a dry and hot part of Iran where the flood is very rare.

According to official reports, 42 people have so far been killed by the flood, with 19 of them being from Shiraz.

According to the surgeon general, five people in Mazandaran, 2 in Northern Khorasan, one in Mashhad, One in Hamedan, one person in Pol Zahab, 7 in Golestan, 2 in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, 2 in Lorestan, one in Khuzestan, and one in Semnan have lost their lives to the flood.

Pol Dokhtar’s governor has announced that some villages in Pol Dokhtar are no longer habitable.