Severe floods and mudslides triggered by torrential rain in northern Turkey have left at least seventeen people dead and another person missing, the country's Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency said Thursday.
The floods battered the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartın, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun on Wednesday, demolishing homes and bridges and sweeping away cars. Helicopters scrambled to rescue people stranded on rooftops.
State broadcaster TRT Haber said on Wednesday one person had died from a heart attack amid the flooding in Bartin.
AFAD said the evacuation of people from impacted areas by helicopters was continuing, adding that there were road closures due to collapsed and damaged bridges.
Television footage showed the floods dragging dozens of cars and heaps of debris along in the streets. The heavy rainfall in the region will ease on Friday, according to data from the weather authority, AFAD said.
The worst-hit area appeared to be in Kastamonu, where flooding inundated much of the town of Bozkurt. At least 13 people were injured when a section of a bridge collapsed in Bartın province. In Sinop, helicopters lifted 19 people to safety.
Many of the affected areas were left without power and village roads were blocked.
Turkey's north is prone to flash floods in the summer when rains are particularly strong. Last year at least five people were killed in floods in the region.
Turkey has also battled raging wildfires that have burnt tens of thousands of hectares of forest along its southern coast for the last two weeks.
Climate scientists say there is little doubt that climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving more extreme events, such as heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms. Such calamities are expected to happen more frequently on our warming planet.
