Four workers died and one was injured when a tornado hit a building site in the Fevzi Cakmak neighbourhood of Kepez district in the Turkish city of Antalya, governor Hulusi Sahin said. Forecasters have extended a heavy rain warning for the province until midday on Thursday.
The tornado swept along 6199 Street at about 11pm the day before yesterday. It scattered the containers where the workers lived and brought down a tower crane. The dead were in two of the containers, watching the Galatasaray v Fenerbahce derby. One was a Turkish citizen and three were Syrians. The injured man is in hospital.
Health teams, firefighters, police and rescuers arrived after the alert and pulled the workers out of the containers. The governor inspected the site.
Sahin said the tornado struck only this spot, smashing two containers to pieces. There was no storm or tornado anywhere else in the city, only rain, he said. The storm cell formed over the site, and neighbouring buildings and the containers next to the site were not damaged.
The crane did not fall on the containers, the governor said. The same tornado brought it down to the south-east, and nobody was injured or killed under it. Sahin offered condolences to the families and wished the injured man a speedy recovery.
Antalya's chief public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the workers' deaths. Four people have been detained: a married couple who were the building contractors, the workplace safety specialist and the site manager.
Police, firefighters and the disaster agency AFAD worked at the scene yesterday morning. Drone footage shows scattered building materials and steel formwork, the wrecked containers and the crane. The roof of the Fevzi Cakmak kindergarten in the area was also damaged.
Murat Ayvazoglu, head of the 4th Regional Directorate of the Meteorological Service, said the rain will go on for several more days. He expects 50 to 100 kg per square metre in central Antalya and to the east, and 21 to 60 kg per square metre in western districts. Temperatures have been above normal so far, will fall below normal with the rain, and from Friday will again be close to usual for the season.
Ayvazoglu said a tornado is a column of air that spins around its axis when the base of a cloud reaches the ground. Such events are more common in the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea in autumn and winter, and Antalya is one of the provinces with the most tornadoes on the coast.
The sea is now between 24C and 25C, which the forecaster said means the air may be unstable and conditions are right for such events. A tornado can also form over land, but this is extreme weather. He said global warming means sudden, heavy rain is also possible in Turkey.
Ayvazoglu called on people to follow the mobile apps, website and social media of the General Directorate of Meteorology for warnings of floods, flash flooding, tornadoes and storms.
In the Konakli neighbourhood of Alanya, torrential rain has fallen since morning. There are puddles on the roads and house entrances are flooded. The market is under water, and surprised tourists took shelter under the awnings of the stalls.