All posts filed under: Environment

Vanishing reservoirs, empty taps: how Iran’s water crisis became a national emergency

Published by

In recent days, images of vast, dried-up reservoirs near Tehran have circulated on social media. These dams supply water to more than nine million people in the Iranian capital, and their depletion has sparked widespread concern. A combination of decades of drought, mismanagement, and crumbling infrastructure is driving Iran towards an unprecedented water crisis as the Middle East enters its warm season, experts warn. A video of the Amir Kabir Dam, 30 km northwest of Tehran, taken in August 2024 shows clear blue water reaching up into the hills. In a video from the same vantage point in March 2025, the water has disappeared, replaced by a cracked, desolate lake bed. Another video being widely shared by Iranians shows a group of motorcyclists driving on the muddy bed of the Latyan Dam reservoir, 15 km northeast of the capital. “You’d be shocked if you knew this was the bed of the Latyan reservoir,” the caption reads. Tehran is on the brink of running out of water. Authorities are preparing to introduce rationing, with daily supply …

Iranian influencer poses with skulls, artifacts in an unexplored archeological site

Published by

Iranian Instagram influencer Soheil Taghavi posed with skulls, bones, and pieces of pottery at the unexplored Tasuki archeological site in southeast Iran in a video that he hoped would go viral. But many people across Iran were shocked by the video, especially lovers of history and archeology. Our Observer explains that even moving the smallest object in this kind of site can jeopardize future digs and ruin important discoveries about the past. On Instagram, Soheil Taghavi describes himself as a tour guide. He has 29,000 followers. In the videos that he posted of his visit to the Tasuki archeological site, Taghavi digs in the ground and pulls out skulls and bones, then poses with them in front of the camera. “I gathered up the best preserved pieces for you”, he says at one point. “Now is the moment to share my page so your friends can see these cool things, too,” he says, smiling. ‘Just touching these artefacts with bare hands could damage them’ Fatemeh Aliasghar is an Iranian journalist who has written extensively about …

Iran: 7-year-old boy is latest child to lose arm to crocodile while fetching water

Published by

A crocodile attack on a 7-year-old boy has refocused attention on the plight of villages in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan Province that lack running water. Residents say their children have no option but to fetch water from lakes and rivers, exposing them to the dangers of drowning and attacks by a species of marsh crocodile known locally as “gandos”. On Aug. 11, a 7-year-old boy named Amirhamzeh from the village of Houttag was attacked by a crocodile as he was fetching water for his family. His parents sent him to neighboring Pakistan for treatment, but the doctors were forced to amputate his left hand. While Iran does not publish statistics of crocodile attacks, locals say they are a regular occurrence. Last year a 9-year-old girl lost her arm in a crocodile attack, and an 8-year-old boy lost a leg. Sistan and Baluchistan is one of the most underdeveloped provinces of Iran, a poor region that shares 1100 km of border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many of the arid province’s villages are not connected to …

A giant sinkhole opens up in drought-hit Iran

Published by

A giant sinkhole about 60 metres deep has made a surprise appearance in western Iran. The sinkhole opened up on August 19 near the small village of Kerdabad, in the Kabudrahang county of the western province of Hamadan. It has terrified both locals and experts, who say this phenomenon shows that groundwater tables have been badly damaged. The images of this giant hole in the earth are even more chilling due to its location: the sinkhole is only one kilometre from a village with more than 2,000 residents, and only a few more kilometres from a solar power station, a thermal power plant and a major national highway. This video of a sinkhole near the village of Kerdabad in the Iranian province of Hamadan was circulating among Iranian users via the messaging app Telegram in August 2018. A shepherd who witnessed the pit’s creation described it to Iran’s state media: “It was about 3 pm and I was just 20 metres away from where the pit would open up. Suddenly I heard a strange, deep …