Turkey flood toll 57; missing list disputed
ISTANBUL — The death toll from severe floods and mudslides along Turkey’s Black Sea coast has climbed to at least 57, the country’s emergency and disaster agency said Saturday, as authorities disputed reports that scores more people were missing.
Torrential rains that pounded the Black Sea provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu and Sinop on Wednesday caused flooding that demolished homes, severed at least five bridges, swept away cars and rendered numerous roads unpassable. Turkish disaster agency said 48 people were killed in Kastamonu, eight in Sinop and one in Bartin.
Eight people remained hospitalized, according to the agency.
Some residents in Kastamonu said on social media that there are hundreds of missing, a statement also made Friday by an opposition lawmaker. But the provincial governor’s office said reports that there were 250 to 300 unidentified bodies were untrue. It did not specifically address how many people could be missing in the flooding or if authorities did have any unidentified bodies.
In Sinop, floodwaters almost completely wiped out the village of Babacay, leaving toppled homes, damaged bridges and rubble in their wake. A five-story apartment building constructed on a riverbed was destroyed, along with numerous homes.
Rescue teams and sniffer dogs kept up their painstaking task of trying to find the missing. The disaster agency said 5,820 personnel, 20 rescue dogs, 20 helicopters and two search planes were at the disaster spots.
About 2,250 people were evacuated across the region during the floods, scores of them lifted from rooftops by helicopters. Many are being temporarily housed in student dormitories.
Climate scientists unequivocally say that climate change is leading to more extreme weather events as the world warms because of the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
Experts in Turkey, however, said human interference with rivers and improper construction contributed to the flood damage.
Geologists say construction narrowed the riverbed and the surrounding alluvial flood plain of the Ezine stream in Kastamonu’s Bozkurt district, where the damage was most severe, from 1,312 feet wide to 49 feet. Residential buildings also were built along the waterfront.
During severe rains, the constricted stream only can overflow. Videos posted by residents showed water rushing downstream in Bozkurt as buildings and roads flooded. One geologist, Ramazan Demirtas, explained the riverbed narrowing on Twitter and said humans were to blame for this week’s disaster.
The floods struck on the heels of wildfires in southern Turkey that devastated forests in the seaside provinces of Mugla and Antalya, which are popular with tourists. At least 16 people died in those wildfires — including eight emergency workers as their firefighting plane crashed Saturday — and thousands of residents and tourists were forced to flee.
The Russian firefighting plane crashed Saturday in a mountainous area in southern Turkey, killing all aboard, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
The Russian ministry said five Russian and three Turkish citizens were on the amphibious Beriev Be-200, which crashed while trying to land in Turkey’s Adana province. A team was dispatched to investigate the accident in the Kahramanmaras area, Turkish state media outlets said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his condolences to the families of the Russian crew who died in the crash and asked the defense minister to prepare documents to give them posthumous awards. The crashed plane belonged to the Russian navy.