Record floods deluge Istanbul: 31 dead

TURKEY: Record floods left at least 31 people dead and large parts of Istanbul under water on Wednesday as desperate motorists caught in flash floods clambered up trees to save themselves from drowning.

Turkey’s Interior Minister Besir Atalay expressed fear that the death toll may rise as the waters began receding from large swathes of the city after several hours of flash flooding triggered by record rainfall overnight.

“Twenty-four people have died in Istanbul and seven others” in the province of Tekirdag, to the west of the city, Atalay told a press conference here.

The biggest loss of life occurred in Istanbul on Wednesday where 21 people died in the European quarter of the city straddling the Bosphorus Strait, a day after three people lost their lives in outlying western suburbs.

Istanbul governor Muammer Guler had said earlier in the day that eight people were still unaccounted for.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Istanbul to observe the damage from the disaster which officials and experts blamed on both record rainfall and the unplanned urbanization of the city which saw buildings constructed on river beds.

After hours of pounding rain described by Environment Minister Veysel Eroglu as the “worst in 500 years”, the flood waters gushed through streets of Istanbul, washing away parked vehicles and swamping houses.

Several motorists were stranded as a major highway connecting the city to the international airport was inundated, with water levels rising to two meters (six feet) in some sections. Istanbul, Thursday, AFP