BAGHDAD, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- At least six people died in a wave of floods of torrential rain that fell Saturday on Iraq's eastern province of Wasit, the Iraqi government said.
"The hospitals of Wasit province received six bodies of people died of floods during the day," Sayf al-Badr, spokesman of the Iraqi Health Ministry said in a brief statement.
The office of Wasit provincial governor, Mohammed al-Maiyahi, said in a separate statement that the service offices of the provincial government are at highest alert, and declared holiday on Sunday for the unstable weather.
Maiyahi office said that there is high coordination with the Prime Minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, directly who confirmed his full support to Wasit province.
On Friday, Mahdi chaired an emergency meeting for the crisis management cell to discuss the effects of the floods that hit Shirqat area and some other areas in the provinces of Salahudin and Nineveh in northern the country as well as areas in some southern provinces.
On Friday, the floods killed up to 11 people, including women and children in villages in Shirqat area, some 280 km north of Iraqi capital Baghdad, in addition to sweeping some 3000 homes, according to recent official report.
The floods came after torrential rain in many areas in northern, eastern and southern Iraq which sometimes caused a torrent of water that gushed some towns and villages.
