Poor Urban Development Plan Boost Flood Risk on Turkey's Northern Coast

A man stands next to damaged vehicle after the flash floods in the northern town of Dereli in Giresun province, Turkey, August 24, 2020. Turkish Interior Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
A man stands next to damaged vehicle after the flash floods in the northern town of Dereli in Giresun province, Turkey, August 24, 2020. Turkish Interior Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
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Poor Urban Development Plan Boost Flood Risk on Turkey's Northern Coast

A man stands next to damaged vehicle after the flash floods in the northern town of Dereli in Giresun province, Turkey, August 24, 2020. Turkish Interior Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
A man stands next to damaged vehicle after the flash floods in the northern town of Dereli in Giresun province, Turkey, August 24, 2020. Turkish Interior Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

When Mahmut Talic left his small hardware shop one summer evening, its displays of tools, insulation supplies and window frames were all neatly in their places.

One hour later, floodwaters rampaged through the shop in the town of Dereli, near Turkey’s Black Sea coast, smashing the glass storefront, filling the shop with mud and sweeping its contents into the street.

“Everything is gone,” Talic, 28, told Reuters.

“I couldn’t get back to the shop that night because the rain was so heavy. But it’s a good thing I didn’t, or I’d be dead now.”

At least 11 people were killed when heavy rain, followed by flash floods and landslides, hit the province of Giresun last month.

Environmentalists and engineers have been warning for years about poorly planned urban development in the Black Sea’s coastal cities and in the thickly forested mountains that rise up steeply behind them.

Combined with the effects of climate change, they warn, this has left the rain-prone region with its population of more than 7 million highly vulnerable to floods, Reuters reported.

Four people are still missing after the storm in Dereli, which washed out or blocked dozens of roads and damaged hundreds of buildings.

“This is the first time I’ve seen such a flood,” Turkish Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said while visiting the area after the disaster.

Just over a month earlier, six people had died in two days of storms further east in the region, in the provinces of Rize and Artvin.

“These kinds of disasters cannot occur because of one mistake,” said Mikdat Kadioglu, a meteorological engineer and disaster management expert at Istanbul Technical University.

“All the activities that destroy the area’s natural structure play a role.”

When Kadioglu was growing up in Macka, a mountain town in the Black Sea province of Trabzon, “the older people would tell the younger ones where to build their houses, the places where they would be safe from landslides or floods,” he recalled.

“But, once the government began constructing roads through the stream-beds, where it was cheaper and easier to build, people started putting their houses there too.”

Neither the ministry of agriculture and forestry nor the ministry of environment and urbanization responded to several requests for comment.

The Black Sea region began changing rapidly in the 1980s. Government subsidies were eliminated for agriculture and livestock husbandry, encouraging migration to the lowland urban centers.

In 1987, construction began on a new 540-km (336-mile) coastal highway from the city of Samsun to the border with Georgia.

Completed two decades later, the highway cut off access to the sea and facilitated additional development along the coast as well as on the stream-beds leading inland up into the mountains.

“Apartment buildings have been built in the yaylalar (upland mountain plateaus), with highways built up to them, covering the river valleys with asphalt and cement,” said Onder Algedik, a mechanical engineer and independent climate consultant.

According to a report by environmental group 350 Ankara, Turkey experienced 328 flood disasters in 2018, a sharp rise from 25 in 2000. During that same period, the amount of asphalt and concrete poured each year nationwide more than doubled.

Recent deluges in Turkey’s two largest cities, Istanbul and Ankara, have created surreal scenes over the past few years of water-logged subways, floating cars and people swimming across the street.

In the Black Sea region, environmental experts say the risks are compounded by the mountainous topography and the hundreds of dams and hydropower stations, quarries, mines and roads built there.

A project to connect the region’s ecologically fragile highlands with a 2,600-km (4,184-mile) highway has continued to move forward despite court rulings against it on environmental grounds, activists and local officials say.

Environmentalists have spoken out against the highway, saying such projects cause deforestation and soil erosion, contributing to the destructiveness of floods and landslides.

Trees help to soak up rainwater, shield the land from heavy rainfall and hold soil in place, they note.



Israel Accuses Türkiye of 'Malice' over UN Arms Embargo Call

Israel UN ambassador Danny Danon on Monday accused Türkiye of “malice,” after Ankara submitted a letter calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel over the war in Gaza. (Reuters/File)
Israel UN ambassador Danny Danon on Monday accused Türkiye of “malice,” after Ankara submitted a letter calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel over the war in Gaza. (Reuters/File)
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Israel Accuses Türkiye of 'Malice' over UN Arms Embargo Call

Israel UN ambassador Danny Danon on Monday accused Türkiye of “malice,” after Ankara submitted a letter calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel over the war in Gaza. (Reuters/File)
Israel UN ambassador Danny Danon on Monday accused Türkiye of “malice,” after Ankara submitted a letter calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel over the war in Gaza. (Reuters/File)

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations on Monday accused Türkiye of "malice," after Ankara submitted a letter signed by 52 countries calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel over the war in Gaza.
"What else can be expected from a country whose actions are driven by malice in an attempt to create conflicts with the support of the 'Axis of Evil' countries," said Ambassador Danny Danon, using a pejorative term to describe the countries who signed the letter.
Türkiye’s foreign ministry said Sunday it had submitted the letter to the United Nations, with the signatories including the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Israel has faced international criticism for the conduct of its war in Gaza, where its offensive has killed at least 43,374 people, most of them civilians, according to health ministry figures which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
The war began when Palestinian armed group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
“This letter is further proof that the UN is led by some sinister countries and not by the liberal countries that support the values of justice and morality," said Danon.
Türkiye’s letter, seen by AFP Monday, called the "staggering" civilian death toll "unconscionable and intolerable."
"We therefore make this collective call for immediate steps to be taken to halt the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying Power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," the letter said.
It added that the UN Security Council (UNSC) must take steps to ensure compliance with its resolutions "which are being flagrantly violated."
The UNSC called in March for a ceasefire in Gaza, but has struggled to speak with a unified voice on the issue due to the veto wielded by Israel's key ally, the United States.
Asked about the joint letter on Monday, the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had not seen it.