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September 10, 2009 ISTANBUL: Record floods left at least 31 people dead and large parts of Istanbul under water on Wednesday as desperate motorists caught in flash floods clambered up trees to save themselves from drowning. Turkey's Interior Minister Besir Atalay expressed fear that the death toll may rise as the waters began receding from large swathes of the city after several hours of flash flooding triggered by record rainfall overnight. "Twenty-four people have died in Istanbul and seven others" in the province of Tekirdag, to the west of the city, Atalay told a press conference here. The biggest loss of life occurred in Istanbul on Wednesday where 21 people died in the European quarter of the city straddling the Bosphorus Strait, a day after three people lost their lives in outlying western suburbs. Istanbul governor Muammer Guler had said earlier in the day that eight people were still unaccounted for. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Istanbul to observe...

September 10, 2009 ISTANBUL: Record floods left at least 31 people dead and large parts of Istanbul under water on Wednesday as desperate motorists caught in flash floods clambered up trees to save themselves from drowning. Turkey's Interior Minister Besir Atalay expressed fear that the death toll may rise as the waters began receding from large swathes of the city after several hours of flash flooding triggered by record rainfall overnight. "Twenty-four people have died in Istanbul and seven others" in the province of Tekirdag, to the west of the city, Atalay told a press conference here. The biggest loss of life occurred in Istanbul on Wednesday where 21 people died in the European quarter of the city straddling the Bosphorus Strait, a day after three people lost their lives in outlying western suburbs. Istanbul governor Muammer Guler had said earlier in the day that eight people were still unaccounted for. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Istanbul to observe...

Wednesday, September 09, 2009 ANKARA: Nine people were killed and two were missing on Tuesday as torrential rain triggered floods in north-western Turkey, media reports and officials said. A family of five were swept away from a farm near the town of Saray, Tekirdag province, when heavy rain caused a river to burst its banks overnight and inundate a large area, causing significant material damage, the town's mayor Nazmi Coban told a news agency. The bodies of the mother and her three daughters, aged six, eight and 12, were found several kilometres away from the farm. Rescue teams were still looking for the father. Rescuers also discovered the bodies of an elderly couple among the wreckage of a nearby house that was swept away by the flooding, Coban told Anatolia. In Silivri, a seaside suburb of Turkey's biggest city Istanbul, one person died of a heart attack when flood waters gushed into his home, governor Muammer Gulen told the Anatolia news agency. Rescuers were searching fo...