Flash floods which have swept through towns in the Turkish Black Sea region have killed 27 people, the country's emergency management agency said on Friday, in the second natural disaster to strike Turkey this month.
The floods battered the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartın, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun on Wednesday, demolishing homes and bridges and sweeping away cars.
Twenty-five people died as a result of the floods in the province of Kastamonu and another two people died in Sinop, the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD) said.
Searches continued for a missing person in the province of Bartın.
The floods and the fires, which killed eight people and devastated tens of thousands of hectares of forest, struck in the same week that a U.N. panel said that global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control, and that extreme weather would become more severe.
More than 1,700 people were evacuated from affected areas, some with the help of helicopters and boats, AFAD said.
Helicopters lowered coast guard personnel onto the roofs of buildings to rescue people who were stranded as floodwater swept through the streets, footage shared by the Interior Ministry showed.
The deluge damaged power infrastructure, leaving about 330 villages without electricity. Five bridges had collapsed and many others were damaged, leading to road closures, AFAD added. Parts of the roads were also swept away.
Television footage showed the floods dragging dozens of cars and heaps of debris along the streets.
Speaking in Bozkurt late Thursday, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu described the scenes as "the most severe flood disaster I have seen."
Turkey's Black Sea region is frequently struck by severe rains and flash flooding. At least six people were killed in floods that hit the eastern Black Sea coastal province of Rize last month.
The disaster struck as firefighters in southwest Turkey worked to extinguish a wildfire in Muğla province, an area popular with tourists that runs along the Aegean Sea. The blaze, which was brought under control on Thursday, was one of more than 200 wildfires in Turkey since July 28. At least eight people died and thousands of residents have had to flee fierce blazes.
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 as the planet warms.
