Rivers overflow, bridges collapse after heavy rains hit northwest Turkey
Heavy rains hit northwest Turkey on Monday, June 27, 2022, causing river to overflow and bridges to collapse. While initial reports mentioned no fatalities, the country’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Tuesday that 2 people are missing.
One of the missing men is a digger operator who was swept away by floods in Duzce province and the other a resident in a village in Kastamonu province, Soylu said.
Ahead of the floods, the Turkish State Meteorological Services (TSMS) and the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) issued a ‘red code,’ the highest emergency alert for weather-related incidents, for Kastamonu.
Later on Monday, AFAD renewed its warning to residents of Kastamonu and the nearby provinces of Zonguldak, Karabük, Bartın and Sinop, calling those on the path of floods to move to safer higher ground and not to park their vehicles near the streams. AFAD said the risk was particularly high for the Kastamonu districts of Inebolu, Bozkurt, Abana, Çatalzeytin, Küre, Pınarbaşı, Şenpazar and Cide, central Karabük and Karabük’s Ovacık and Safranbolu districts, Zonguldak’s Devrek and Gökçebey, central Bartın and Sinop’s Ayancık district.
The rains affected 6 provinces along the Black Sea, but the worst appears to be the Inebolu district in Kastamonu Province where a stream overflowed its banks, inundating residential areas, damaging parks and a marketplace.1
Basement floors of houses were filled with floodwaters, while the local municipality warned the owners of shops on the first floors of buildings not to open, the Daily Sabah reports.
Locals were also urged not to approach the banks and to take shelter on the upper floors of buildings if their first and basement floor residences are at risk.
Downpours continued into Monday and also caused sporadic power outages.
Two iron pedestrian bridges over the stream collapsed in the floods.
The floods also led to the closure of a road connecting the district to central Kastamonu.
References:
1 Floods in northern Turkey evoke fears of 2021 disaster – The Daily Sabah – June 27, 2022
Featured image credit: EUMETSAT/Meteosat-11, Zoom Earth, The Watchers
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