The Malta Independent 11 May 2024, Saturday
View E-Paper

Torrential rains hit Turkey, Japan, Russia

Associated Press Sunday, 15 August 2021, 07:11 Last update: about 4 years ago

Heavy rains have flooded broad areas in southern Russia, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,,500 people, officials said Saturday.

Authorities in the Krasnodar region said more than 1,400 houses have been flooded following storms and heavy rains that swept the area this week. About 108,000 residents of 11 settlements were left without power, and a section of a federal highway was washed away by floods.

Emergencies Minister Yevgeny Zinichev reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that a total of 1,540 people have been evacuated, including nearly 1,000 children from several summer camps.

ADVERTISEMENT

He said 2,500 emergency workers were involved in efforts to cope with the consequences of the floods.

The Black Sea resort city of Anapa and the city of Temryuk were the worst affected, receiving rainfall equivalent to the average for an entire year, the regional governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, told Putin.

Russian emergency officials have warned that heavy rains were expected to continue for another two days.

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 heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms.

***

Torrential rain triggered a mudslide and more floods across Japan on Sunday, leaving three people presumed dead and forcing the evacuation of dozens of residents.

A mudslide early Sunday hit a house in Okaya City in the central Japanese prefecture of Nagano, burying eight residents. Three of the people were presumed dead when rescue workers found them, and two others were injured, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. The other three people were safely rescued.

On Friday, a mudslide in Nagasaki killed one person, injured another and left two others missing, while a separate mudslide in Hiroshima left one person seriously injured.

By Sunday, dozens of people in flooded areas in the southern Kyushu region as well as Hiroshima were rescued, the disaster management agency said.

Heavy rain has dumped on southwestern Japan since last week. The Japan Meteorological Agency said more rain is expected in the coming days as a front is stuck above the Japanese archipelago.

Nearly 200 municipalities under high risks of floods or mudslides have issued evacuation instructions, affecting more than 4 million residents, though there is no penalty for those who ignore.

More than 500 homes around the country have been damaged by floods and mudslides, the disaster management agency said.

***

The death toll from severe floods and mudslides along Turkey's Black Sea coast has climbed to at least 57, the country's emergency and disaster agency said Saturday, as authorities disputed reports that dozens more people were missing.

Torrential rains that pounded the Black Sea provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu and Sinop on Wednesday caused flooding that demolished homes, severed at least five bridges, swept away cars and rendered numerous roads unpassable. Turkish disaster agency AFAD said 48 people were killed in Kastamonu, eight in Sinop and one in Bartin.

Eight people remained hospitalized, according to the agency.

Speaking late Saturday in Kastamonu, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said 15 of the dead had not been identified yet. He slammed opposition parties, social media users and media for claims that hundreds could be missing. He said a total of 77 cases of missing persons remained in Kastamonu and Sinop but emphasized that doesn't necessarily mean they were dead. He added the previous number of missing persons was 143, including duplicate names and some reached alive.

The Kastamonu provincial governor’s office also said reports that there were 250 to 300 unidentified bodies were untrue. It did not specifically address how many people could be missing in the flooding.

Some residents in Kastamonu shared names and photos of missing people on social media since the floods began. The deputy chairman of Turkey's main opposition party, Engin Altay, said he was informed there were more than 300 people reported missing, adding the official numbers appeared to be lower. “The state needs to be transparent,” he said from Kastamonu hours before the interior minister spoke.

In Sinop, floodwaters almost completely wiped out the village of Babacay, leaving toppled homes, damaged bridges and rubble in their wake. A five-story apartment building constructed on a riverbed was destroyed, along with numerous homes.

Rescue teams and sniffer dogs kept up their painstaking task of trying to locate the missing. AFAD said 5,820 personnel, 20 rescue dogs, 20 helicopters and two search planes were at the disaster spots.

About 2,250 people were evacuated across the region amid the floods, scores of them lifted from rooftops by helicopters. Many are being temporarily housed in student dormitories.

  • don't miss