A 14-year-old boy died after suffering an electric shock when he stepped into a pool of water in İstanbul on Wednesday evening as torrential rain flooded homes and businesses, stranded motorists and forced schools to close for the following day, the DHA news agency reported.
The boy was electrocuted at Çukurbostan Park in Balat, a historic neighborhood on the city’s European side. He was taken to a hospital unconscious but could not be saved, the İstanbul’s Governor’s Office said in a statement. An investigation has been launched into the incident.
The downpour inundated roads, underpasses and buildings across Turkey’s largest city, home to around 16 million people. Floodwaters swept away parked cars and left other vehicles stranded.
İstanbul Şile yolunda araçlar selde mahsur kaldı pic.twitter.com/GvqxVbP18J
— TRT HABER (@trthaber) October 14, 2026
Bystanders pulled a woman to safety as she was carried down a street by the current, while firefighters rescued another person from a flooded basement, according to footage aired by Turkish broadcaster NTV.
Water also entered parts of the Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar, two of İstanbul’s best-known tourist attractions, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The Kağıthane stream overflowed, temporarily shutting the Kağıthane-Piyalepaşa road tunnel. In the northern district of Sarıyer, floodwaters entered homes and businesses and left vehicles trapped on roads.
Emergency services received 2,518 reports between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., including 1,277 flooding incidents, 15 landslides and 47 incidents involving stranded people, the governor’s office said.
Some 8,000 personnel and 2,000 vehicles and pieces of heavy equipment were deployed.
Nearly 194 millimeters of rain was recorded at the Beykoz-Ömerli monitoring station on the Asian side. Stations in Sarıyer and Arnavutköy on the European side recorded about 125 millimeters.
The governor’s office suspended in-person classes at public and private educational institutions for Thursday and granted administrative leave to certain public employees. Motorcycles and similar two-wheeled vehicles were banned from roads from 9 p.m. Wednesday until further notice.
Residents were urged to limit travel, and those in basement apartments were advised to find somewhere else to stay overnight.
In its 8 p.m. update, the governor’s office said no roads remained closed and airport runways were operating, with no flight cancellations reported at that time. Emergency crews continued responding to incidents across the city.
The flooding struck as İstanbul’s elected mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has been jailed since March 2025, began presenting his detailed defense in a corruption trial on Wednesday.
İmamoğlu, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political rival, denies the charges and says the case is politically motivated.
Turkey is vulnerable to floods, drought and wildfires because of its geography, population exposure and reliance on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, the World Bank says. Flooding in its northern Black Sea region killed more than 80 people in 2021.
Climate change can intensify heavy rainfall, while paved surfaces, urban expansion and inadequate drainage increase flood risks in cities, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The flooding also 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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