ISTANBUL: 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 Istanbul, 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 Gov. Muammer Guler had said earlier in the day that eight people were still unaccounted for.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was expected to fly to Istanbul to observe the damage of 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 in some sections. Motorists could be seen clambering on to the roof of their stalled vehicles waiting to be rescued, while others climbed up trees. Rescuers recovered 13 bodies at a truck park in the district of Basaksehir, one of the worst affected areas, the NTV news channel reported.
Anatolia quoted survivors as saying that the flood waters came while the truck drivers were asleep in their vehicles, raising the water level to five meters in 10 minutes and giving them little chance to run to higher ground.
Once the flood waters receded, the park was left under a thick layer of mud with trucks toppled over on the sides or piled on top of each other.
In the neighboring district of Halkali, seven women drowned when they were swept away by the flood as they tried to get out of their stranded minibus taking them to work at a textile factory, Guler explained.
“The minibus was right at the front of the factory. It was hit by water coming from both sides. Those at the front managed to get out, but those at the back could not,” the governor said.
