Landslide kills one in northeastern Turkey
A view of landslide, in Artvin, northeastern Turkey, July 1, 2022. (AA PHOTO)


An Azerbaijani truck driver was killed and another person was injured when a landslide piled up rocks on a road in the northeastern Turkish province of Artvin on Friday.

The landslide took place on a road connecting Artvin’s Kemalpaşa and Hopa districts, along a part of a major route connecting the wider Black Sea region to Caucasian countries and Turkey’s west. Rocks rolled down the slope due to the landslide and hit four trucks while occupants of other vehicles escaped uninjured. Authorities closed the road following the incident while work is underway to remove the boulders. Local officials said the victim was in a parked truck on the roadside and was heading to Georgia.

Landslides are common in the rainy Black Sea region, grappling with heavy showers and subsequent floods earlier this week. Ministry of Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change announced Friday that due to the floods in western parts of the region, 13 buildings collapsed and 11 other buildings were heavily damaged in seven provinces. Two people who went missing in Kastamonu and Düzce provinces are still unaccounted for. Elsewhere, flash floods killed a young woman trapped on the basement floor of a residential building in the capital Ankara on Thursday while another person is missing after the floods in the Keçiören district of the city.