Almost a week after the water came, Istanbul is still finding its victims. On Monday, governor Davut Gül put the number of dead at eight, after a man who had been missing was found close to the Ayvansaray ferry landing on the Golden Horn. Six of the victims died inside the city. The other two lost their lives near Gebze in neighbouring Kocaeli province and were swept by the torrent all the way to the Pendik district, far to the south-east on the city’s Asian side. Rescuers have not yet given up on the last missing resident.
The trigger was the storm of 14 October. Officials say no rainfall like it had been measured since records began in 1942. Streets turned into rivers within minutes, and videos showed cars and pedestrians being dragged along. One of the earliest deaths was that of a teenager, aged 14, killed by an electric shock when he walked through standing water.
The damage reaches far beyond the death toll. Authorities have logged about 19,300 reports, from leaking roofs to basements where nothing could be saved. Roughly two thousand flats and houses plus some 900 shops and workshops were badly hit. In Ayazağa, crews have torn down unsafe structures and are clearing debris; on the Asian side, the coastal district of Şile was also flooded, though nobody died there.
Thousands of residents had to be brought to safety during the storm, and Gül says no one is still waiting for rescue. The state has begun paying emergency aid: 5,200 households received 10,000 lira each last Friday, and another 2,500 were due the same sum on Monday. Compensation for the seriously damaged properties is now starting to flow.
