ISTANBUL (AP) — Torrential rainstorms hit Romania overnight into Monday, triggering flash floods in the country’s northeast and killing at least one person, officials said, as Turkey continued to battle wildfires that left four dead.
Hundreds were forced to leave their homes as Romania's rescue services deployed teams in the hard-hit counties of Neamt and Suceava, where helicopters and firefighters rescued residents, some of whom were trapped in their homes by floodwaters. Authorities said 890 people were evacuated from Neamt County.
First responders found a 66-year-old man dead at the bottom of a stream in the town of Neagra, according to the Department for Emergency Situations.
Authorities released footage showing raging muddy floodwaters strewn with battered vehicles and other debris as well as damaged homes.
Meanwhile, in Turkey, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli told reporters in Ankara Monday, “We are in a very risky week” as his country battled wildfires, with blazes near Bursa, Turkey's fourth-largest city, erupting over the weekend.
The wildfire to the northeast of Bursa had been largely extinguished but the one to the south of the city continued, although its intensity had been “significantly reduced,” Yumakli said. He also said a fire that has been burning for six days in Karabuk, northwest Turkey, had also “been reduced in intensity," and a blaze in Karamanmaras in the south had largely been brought under control.
Turkey has been fighting severe wildfires since late June.
In Bursa, three volunteer firefighters were killed after their water tanker overturned, local news agency IHA reported. One died at the scene and the two others were pulled from the tanker and hospitalized but died late Sunday.
The volunteer crew from the province of Bolu was on its way to the village of Aglasan, northeast of Bursa, to combat a blaze when the vehicle fell into a ditch while negotiating a rough forest track, the agency reported.
Separately, officials said earlier Sunday a firefighter died of a heart attack while battling a blaze. This brought the total deaths over the past month to 17, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed Wednesday in a fire in the western city of Eskisehir.
The huge blazes around Bursa forced more than 3,500 people to flee their homes. While firefighting teams have contained the damage to a limited number of homes across hit areas in Turkey, vast tracts of forest have been turned to ash.
Unseasonably high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds have been fueling the wildfires. Turkey and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean are currently experiencing record-breaking heatwaves.
Turkey battled at least 44 separate fires Sunday, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said late Sunday.
The government earlier declared disaster areas in two western provinces, Izmir and Bilecik. Prosecutions have been launched against 97 people in 33 of Turkey’s 81 provinces in relation to the fires, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said.
A crowd of people gathered Sunday evening outside a police station in the village of Harmancik, 57 kilometers (35 miles) south of Bursa, after learning a suspected arsonist was detained there. The angry crowd demanded the suspect be handed over to them. The crowd dispersed after police assured them a thorough investigation would be undertaken.
___
Associated Press writer Stephen McGrath in Bucharest, Romania, contributed to this report.
Andrew Wilks, The Associated Press
