PARIS, April 4 (Reuters) – France will airlift 12 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including 114 pumps, to flood-hit regions in Iran, the French foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Exceptionally heavy rains since March 19 have flooded some 1,900 cities and villages, killing 62 people and causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to Iranian agriculture, leaving aid agencies struggling to cope.

France said the first shipments would start in coming days, adding that Iranian authorities had asked for assistance.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; editing by John Irish)