In brief
Heavy rains triggered flash floods on Saturday in eastern Syria that killed seven people, five of them children, and injured seven others. Rescue teams have carried out hundreds of emergency operations, evacuated students and families, and pumped water from hundreds of homes as roads are cut off and infrastructure damaged. Four people remain missing and damage extends across Raqqa, Deir al‑Zor, Hasakah, Aleppo and Idlib.
Flash floods in eastern Syria on Saturday killed seven people, including five children, and injured a further seven, WAM reported, marking a grim spike in the region’s ongoing weather crisis.
The casualties were confirmed by Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management Raed al‑Saleh in a statement posted on X, where he noted that the five children drowned in pools formed by the flooding, while a seventh victim died in a traffic accident while attempting to escape the rising waters.
The five children drowned in pools of water formed by the floods, while another person died in a traffic accident.
Al‑Saleh said rescue teams have been searching for four missing persons and that more than 550 emergency operations have taken place since the storms began. Sixty people were rescued from floodwater, while relief crews responded to more than 900 distress calls.
The Ministry additionally reported that it has evacuated over 350 students from two schools and helped 375 families relocate from camps in Raqqa province. Teams also responded to flooding at camps in rural Aleppo and Idlib, and pumped water from around 250 homes and public buildings.
Raqqa, Deir al‑Zor and Hasakah provinces, along with parts of Aleppo, have suffered extensive damage, with infrastructure knocked down, roads cut off and families forced to leave homes as a result of the relentless rainfall, which began on Tuesday and has kept many Syrian regions in a state of unstable weather with heavy rains and strong thunderstorms.
