Rescue teams found the body of a man reported missing in İstanbul’s floods on Friday, while a search is underway for three others, the DHA news agency reported.
The body of the 66-year-old man was recovered from beneath a bridge in Ayazağa, a neighborhood in the northern district of Sarıyer, DHA reported.
Before the discovery Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said four people were missing after a fifth person returned safely. That person had been reported missing because their phone battery had died and relatives could not reach them, he said.
The Associated Press reported that Friday’s discovery brought the flood death toll to four. A construction worker also died Thursday during flood cleanup operations in Beykoz; it was not clear whether his death was included in that total.
The worker, Faik Şentürk, fell into a well while pumping floodwater from a school construction site in Beykoz. He was rescued and taken to a hospital but died despite medical intervention, DHA reported.
Çiftçi had said Thursday that another person was missing in neighboring Kocaeli province.
The İstanbul Governor’s Office said a man’s body was found near Sadabat Park in the Kağıthane district. Efforts to identify him were continuing.
Torrential rain submerged roads, swept away cars and flooded homes and businesses across Turkey’s largest city, home to around 16 million people. Gül said 3,050 people had been rescued, while seven others had been discharged from hospitals after receiving treatment. He said no one was still awaiting rescue, although searches for the missing continued.
Gül described the downpour as the heaviest recorded in İstanbul since meteorological measurements began in 1942.
A 34-year-old person died after slipping while trying to cross a flooded street in the northern district of Sarıyer. The victim struck their head on a curb and was unable to get out of the water. Bystanders pulled them out, but they later died in a hospital, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
That death followed the electrocution of a 14-year-old boy Wednesday evening at a park in Balat, a historic neighborhood on the city’s European side. The boy stepped into a pool of water and was taken to a hospital unconscious but could not be saved, the governor’s office said. Investigations were opened into both deaths.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said criminal investigations had been launched into the flood-related deaths to determine the circumstances and establish whether negligence or wrongdoing had contributed to them.
Emergency teams worked through the night to evacuate people from flooded buildings. The flooding also caused the Kağıthane Stream to overflow, inundating nearby businesses and the historic Sadabat Mosque.
Residents unable to return home were being accommodated in hotels and public facilities.
Çiftçi said Friday that nearly 46,000 staff members were working across İstanbul and that emergency services had received 9,850 verified reports related to the flooding.
Environment Minister Murat Kurum said unfinished flood control work along waterways in Ayazağa and the nearby Cendere area needed to be completed.
Damage assessments continued across the city. The Turkish Insurance Association said insurers had received 838 claims related to flooding in İstanbul as of Thursday, including 776 property insurance claims and 62 car insurance claims.
Gül said compensation payments to affected residents could begin Friday afternoon and would start no later than Monday, October 19.
Rainfall reached 273.1 millimeters — about 10.8 inches — in Beykoz on the Asian side, according to updated municipal figures, equivalent to roughly 273 liters of water falling on every square meter of ground. Sarıyer and Eyüpsultan recorded more than 200 millimeters each.
The downpour also sharply increased water levels in reservoirs supplying the city. According to İstanbul’s water authority, İSKİ, the average reservoir filling rate rose from 38.06 percent to 45.22 percent in a single day, while the Elmalı Reservoir reached full capacity.
At İstanbul Airport, 51 incoming flights were diverted and 19 arrivals and departures were canceled, Gül said.
Schools remained closed Friday for a second consecutive day as officials warned that further rainfall could trigger more flooding.
Gül urged residents to avoid unnecessary travel, warning that rain was expected to continue for another two to three days and that the ground was already saturated.
Forecasters warned of another round of heavy rainfall on Friday and Saturday, raising concerns about flash floods and landslides in areas already saturated by the record downpour.
Turkey is highly vulnerable to climate hazards because of its geography, population exposure and reliance on sectors such as agriculture, the World Bank says.
Global warming intensifies heavy rainfall, while urban expansion and paved surfaces increase runoff and strain drainage systems, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Environment Minister Murat Kurum linked the disaster to climate change and increasingly extreme rainfall patterns.
The flooding comes less than a month before Turkey hosts the COP31 UN climate conference in the Mediterranean city of Antalya from November 9 to 20.
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