The death toll from severe rainstorms that lashed parts of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria increased to eight on Wednesday after rescue teams located the body of a missing traveller who was swept away by flood waters that raged through a campsite in northwest Turkey.
A flash flood at the campsite near the border with Bulgaria carried away bungalow homes. Hundreds of homes and workplaces in several neighbourhoods in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, also were inundated during Tuesday's storms.
At least five people died, three at the campsite and two in Istanbul, authorities said. Rescuers were still searching for three people reported missing at the campsite.
The victims in Istanbul included a 32-year-old Guinean citizen who was trapped inside his ground-floor apartment in the low-income Kucukcekmece district, Turkish broadcaster HaberTurk TV reported.
The surging flood waters affected more than 1,750 homes and businesses in the city, according to the Istanbul governor’s office. They included a line of shops in the Ikitelli district, where the deluge dragged parked vehicles and mud into furniture stores, destroying the merchandise, the private DHA news agency reported.
The floods also engulfed a parking area for containers and trucks on the city's outskirts where people found safety by climbing on the roof of a restaurant, Turkish media reports said.
In Greece, a record rainfall caused at least one death near the central city of Volos and at least five people were reported missing. The fire department said the man was killed when a wall buckled and fell on him.
Authorities banned traffic in Volos, the nearby mountain region of Pilion and the resort island of Skiathos.
In Bulgaria, a storm caused floods on the country’s southern Black Sea coast, leaving two people dead. Three others were missing. TV footage showed cars and camper vans being swept out to sea in the southern resort town of Tsarevo.
Authorities declared a state of emergency in the town and urged people to move upstairs as water swamped the ground floors of some hotels.
