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Heavy rain in Istanbul pushed the Turknil River over its banks in Sile and flooded some streets, while the rising Riva Stream submerged fields in Beykoz. Downpours that intensified in the city on Wednesday disrupted daily life.
Sile’s Turknil River burst its banks amid the storm, and its waters spread onto streets in the Kumbaba neighborhood.
Police closed roads through the inundated area to traffic as a precaution.
Floodwater entered some homes along the riverbank, and residents tried to drain it and clean up on their own.
Neighborhood resident Mercan Kaplan said he has rented in Sile for three years and that the storm flooded her home’s garden.
After the flood level climbed, he appealed to the relevant institutions for help but got no results, Kaplan noted, adding that they are trying to clear the water on their own.
Kaplan stated that the area sees similar trouble each year and that the stream keeps spilling over as rainfall increases: “No solution is being found. We are victims, my wife and child are somewhere else, I am struggling here, everyone is struggling."
“Water keeps coming out of the parquet floors and the drains, and we cannot stop it. In the basement, water seeps through the walls the same way,” he continued.
Ali Adiguzel, another resident, said he has lived in Sile since 2020 and has met similar floods before.
Repeated applications to authorities for a fix have brought no result yet, Adiguzel noted, before adding, “Honestly, it is fear, panic, everything at once. What can we do, we were on the street until morning. We took our cars and moved them somewhere.”
Runoff from surrounding streams also gathered in the district, Adiguzel said.
Meanwhile, in Beykoz, the Riva Stream rose after the storm and left nearby fields under water. Drone cameras captured aerial views of the flooded streets in Sile, the swollen Riva Stream in Beykoz and the farmland submerged around it.
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