Flash floods kill 13 as Turkey reels from multiple disasters

ISTANBUL: Turkish rescuers distributed food and relocated thousands of people into student dormitories on Thursday as the death toll from flash floods that swept across several Black Sea regions rose to 13.

The torrential rains descended on Turkey’s northern stretches just as rescuers reported bringing hundreds of wildfires that have killed eight people since late July under near total control in the south. Turkey has been grappling with drought and reeling from a rapid succession of natural disasters that world scientists believe are becoming more frequent and intense because of climate change.

Storms that swept in from the Balkans late Tuesday turned streets into running rivers and set off mudslides that buckled roads and tore down bridges in three mountainous regions hugging Turkey’s rugged Black Sea coast.

Emergency services said waters briefly rose in some parts as high as four metres (13 feet) before subsiding and spreading across a region stretching more than 150 miles wide. Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli warned on Wednesday that the area was facing "a disaster that we had not seen in 50 or 100 years".

Rescuers were forced to evacuate a hospital holding 45 patients -- four of them in intensive care -- in the region around the coastal city of Sinop on Wednesday. Images on television and social media showed stranded villagers being plucked off rooftops by helicopter and bridges collapsing under the force of the rushing water below. Turkey’s disaster response authority said 10 people had lost their lives in the northern Kastamonu province and one in the neighbouring region of Sinop.