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Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Eaves, and welcome to this Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: Today is February third, nineteen. The day was February third,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. Iran had endured a four year drought,

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Speaker 1: but on this day, an intense blizzard started in Iran

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Speaker 1: and didn't end for a week. All over Iran, people

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Speaker 1: were buried beneath the snow. The snowstorm was the deadliest

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Speaker 1: one in recorded history. Iran generally has a pretty hot

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Speaker 1: and dry climate, but snow is no stranger to the

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Speaker 1: mountainous areas of the country. This snowstorm, though, hit northwest,

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Speaker 1: central and southern Iran. There had been smaller storms in January,

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Speaker 1: but this one was so powerful that it buried two

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Speaker 1: hundred villages. From February third until February nine, the snow

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Speaker 1: storm ripped across the country, burying the land in ten

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Speaker 1: to six ft or three to eight meters of snow.

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Speaker 1: Iran was not prepared for this disaster, and the storm

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Speaker 1: was devastating. Temperatures got down to minus thirteen fahrenheit or

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Speaker 1: minus five degrees celsius in some places, causing pipes to freeze.

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Speaker 1: And a shortage of water, cable and telephone line snapped.

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Speaker 1: Roads were cut off, people were trapped in cars and

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Speaker 1: froze to death. US sources reported that an American college

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Speaker 1: student and two of her friends, who have been mountain

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Speaker 1: climbing near Tehran when the storm hit, were missing, and

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Speaker 1: the five person team who went to look for them

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Speaker 1: also vanished in the search. And as if the destruction

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Speaker 1: caused by the snow weren't enough, a flu was spreading

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Speaker 1: through snowbound villages, killing some people and without water, food, heat,

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Speaker 1: and medical assistance, some people who had managed to survive

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Speaker 1: the blizzard died from lack of resources. When the snow

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Speaker 1: let up on February nine, rescue workers got the chance

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Speaker 1: to go by helicopter out to places where trains, cars,

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Speaker 1: and entire towns have been buried by snowfall. What they

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Speaker 1: found was grim. In one case, a search team reached

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Speaker 1: a village near the border of Turkey where one people lived,

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Speaker 1: but the village at the bottom of the Zagris Mountains

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Speaker 1: was empty. They didn't find anybody there alive, but they

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Speaker 1: did find eighteen bodies buried in the snow. On February eleven,

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Speaker 1: another blizzard started up Army helicopters had dropped bread and

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Speaker 1: dates in the hopes that people would reach them, but

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Speaker 1: many never did. Newspapers at the time put the number

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Speaker 1: of missing people at six thousand, but it's thought today

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Speaker 1: that around four thousand people died because of the snowstorm.

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Speaker 1: Most of those deaths were recorded in and near Arcticon

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Speaker 1: in central Iran. I'm Eve step Coote and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: You can subscribe to this Day in History class on

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, the I Heart radio app, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: get your podcasts. We'll see you here in the same

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Speaker 1: place tomorrow. H