Violent storms hit Turkey’s provinces, kills woman

ISTANBUL

A woman lost her life as a garden wall collapsed on her due to severe storms that hit three of Turkey’s Aegean and Marmara provinces on June 23, blowing roofs away, toppling trees and threatening the safety of people living in the region.

These powerful storms severely impacted the Marmara province of Balıkesir and the Aegean provinces of Aydın and Manisa.

With a speed of 30-kilometer per hour, these storms blew the roof of some houses away in the early hours of the day in Aydın’s Nazilli district. Many trees and electric poles toppled, leaving the district without electricity for a while.

The impact of the storm was so severe that a garden wall collapsed on an old woman while she was trying to draw water from a fountain. Though firefighters were able to get the woman out from the debris, she couldn’t survive the impact and lost her life on the way to the hospital.

“We were off-balance as no meteorological warning was given to us,” said Kürşat Engin Özcan, the district’s mayor.

A lightning stroke on a sheep pen in the Akhisar district of Manisa left two sheep killed and two people injured. A 50-year-old plane tree toppled in the Kula district of the province due to a heavy storm.

Heavy precipitation and storms that lasted for about 45 minutes severely impact the Balıkesir’s Marmara district.

In the three neighborhoods, many houses faced floods and many trees toppled, causing chaos.