Deadly flash flooding hits northwestern Turkey

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Turkey

Other stories from Turkey

• 13 October 2009: Turkey and Armenia sign historic agreement
• 12 October 2009: Greece’s newly elected Prime Minister pays first foreign visit to Turkey
• 7 October 2009: Demonstrators and police clash at IMF meetings in Istanbul
• 6 October 2009: Istanbul to host 2009 IMF meetings
• 25 September 2009: 'Last Ottoman' dies at age 97

...More articles here

Location of Turkey

To write, edit, start or view other articles on Turkey, see the Turkey Portal

Marmara Region of Turkey.
Image: Rarelibra.

Heavy overnight rains flooded Istanbul, Turkey, stranding motorists and flooding arterial roads. The floods led to the death of at least 31 people and the cost of damage has been estimated as being in excess of $70 million in northwestern parts of the country.

The flood devastated businesses, swept away cars and swamped houses, roads, and farming land. Fueled by the worst rain in 80 years, waters rose up to six feet (2 meters) high in the city's İkitelli district, cutting off the route to Istanbul's main airport and the highway to Greece and Bulgaria on the European side of the sprawling city.

"We are saddened by the loss of lives. There are still some people missing and we are searching for them," said Mustafa Demir, the Turkish Procurement Minister, as quoted by the Associated Press news agency.

Over 1000 people have been rescued by emergency services, including military helicopters, since the floods began on Tuesday.

Sources

Wikipedia has an article about 2009 Turkish flash floods.

• "Turks swept away in flash floods". BBC News Online, September 9, 2009
• "Dozens killed as devastating floods hit Turkey". CNN, September 9, 2009
• "Heaviest rains in 80 years kill 31 in Turkey". Reuters, September 9, 2009
• "Flash floods slam Istanbul, kill at least 20". Yahoo! News, September 9, 2009
• "Turkish flood death toll rises". BBC News Online, September 10, 2009
  

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable. Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators. Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections. Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.