At least eleven people have died, five have disappeared and dozens have been injured due to the floods that have affected Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria and have caused enormous damage to houses, roads and infrastructure.
In Greece, which until last week suffered the worst forest fires in fifteen years, meteorologists speak of the most extreme phenomenon that the country has experienced since there are rainfall records.
In the town of Zagora, 754 liters per square meter were recorded within 18 hours, a record high. Two people have already died in this country while a man whose vehicle was swept away by a torrent remains missing.
Firefighters have had to rescue, even with rafts, dozens of people trapped in Volos, a city of 150,000 inhabitants and capital of the Magnesia region, which is completely flooded.
Most of the city is without electricity or water supply, while damage to the road network throughout the region is extensive.
The storm is also affecting the regions of Trikala, Karditsa, and Phthiotide in central Greece, where the authorities have decided to preventively evacuate several towns.
In Turkey, at least six people have died and another two are still missing, due to the floods that affect different parts of the country, especially the border area with Bulgaria and Istanbul.
In some districts of the Eurasian metropolis, rainfall of up to 130 liters per square meter was recorded yesterday in a period of 24 hours, levels far from the all-time highs in the country, but which experts describe as “disastrous”.
“The rain fell especially in the northern part, in the regions between Kirklareli (on the border with Bulgaria) and Istanbul,” Begüm Celikdelen, head of Istanbul’s water service, told EFE today.
These rains can help to alleviate the supply crisis that Istanbul is experiencing due to the drought, where the swamps had fallen below 30% of their capacity in recent days. “We observe that water is entering the dams from some small rivers, but how the water level will improve we can measure tomorrow,” Celikdelen said.
Two people have been killed by flash floods in Istanbul, where thousands of houses, several metro stations and a hospital have been flooded.
In Kirklareli, in the extreme northwest of Turkey, two bodies have been located today, after the two found yesterday, of a group of twelve people who were trapped in a hotel and were swept away by the flood. Two other people from that group are still missing today.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said that across the country 31 people have been injured due to flooding, eight of whom are still hospitalized.
In Bulgaria, a third body was found today in the vicinity of the municipality of Tsarevo, on the Black Sea coast and close to the border with Turkey.
The mayor of the town, Georgi Lapchev, already warned last night that there may be more victims since the number of missing after a river overflowed is unknown. “No one has ever seen this amount of rainfall in this area. They caused a tidal wave that came in very quickly and washed away cars.
The water keeps coming,” he said. The Prime Minister, Nikolay Denkov, has assured that it is a “natural disaster” and has said that the 300 liters of water per square meter collected in some areas in 24 hours is something that happens very rarely, reports the portal novini.bg.
Emergency teams are working to clear roads that have been blocked by falling trees or landslides and rocks, and to pump water from two reservoirs in a controlled manner to prevent them from overflowing.
Firefighters are also draining the ground floors of private homes and hotels in a heavily touristed area of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. The Minister of Tourism, Zaritsa Dinkova, indicated, after meeting with the hoteliers, that some 4,000 people are affected in this area.
EFE
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