Turkey sends ships to evacuate flood-hit town as death toll hits 62
15 August 2021, 17:44
More than 70 people also remain missing after the floods which demolished houses and washed away bridges in the country’s north-west.
Turkey has sent ships to help evacuate people and vehicles from a northern town on the Black Sea that was hard hit by flooding, as the death toll in the disaster rose to at least 62.
Many more people remain missing after the floods on Wednesday.
Torrential rains pounded the country’s north-western Black Sea provinces, causing flooding that demolished homes, severed bridges, swept away cars and rendered numerous roads unpassable.
The Turkish disaster agency AFAD said 52 people were killed in the province of Kastamonu, nine in Sinop and one in Bartin.
Turkey’s interior minister said 77 people were still missing in the flooding. Eight remained in hospital.
Emergency crews across the region kept up the search for the missing amid the many buildings that have partially collapsed.
The Turkish defence ministry sent two ships to evacuate people and vehicles from a town in Sinop.
They also sent military vehicles that can serve as temporary bridges to help get access to areas where bridges were wiped out.
Israel’s defence ministry said on Sunday it had reached out to Turkey with an offer to send a search-and-rescue team.
The heavy flooding came after Turkey endured a searing heat wave and as crews in the south were taming wildfires that raced across the country’s Mediterranean coast.
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 heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms, as the Earth warms.
