Istanbul flood deaths rise to three as schools stay closed through Friday

Mahmut Işıldak reportedly took off his shoes to keep them dry. The 14-year-old then walked barefoot into standing water in Istanbul’s Balat neighborhood and was electrocuted. He reached hospital unconscious and could not be saved. ¹⁵⁵

His death was the first identified loss in a flood emergency whose toll continued to grow on Thursday, October 15. A man’s body found beside Sadabat Park in Kağıthane brought the confirmed death toll to three, the Istanbul Governor’s Office said. Four other people remained missing—a separate count that does not include the recovered body. His identity was still being established. ^{16 58}

Across the city, 2,727 people had been evacuated, according to Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi. Water filled homes and workplaces, submerged roads and forced boat rescues through the night. Public and private schools will remain closed through Friday, October 16, extending Thursday’s shutdown by another day. ^{78 56}

The earlier casualty reports describe stages of an expanding emergency, not competing final totals. The Governor’s Office reported one death on October 14; Euronews reported at least two on October 15. The subsequent three-death update supersedes those accounts. Some coverage continued quoting two deaths, but publication times alone do not establish when the underlying official briefings occurred. ^{1 2 16 74}

Mahmut’s death also carries a location correction. The initial announcement placed the electrocution in Çukurbostan Park, in Balat, Fatih. A later municipal clarification placed it at the vehicle entrance of an adjoining private parking area, near Sultan Selim Caddesi. That changes the reported location, not the reported cause of death. ^{33 210}

Mahmut was a hafız, someone who had memorized the Quran. An investigation was opened into his death, but the source of the electrical current and responsibility for the hazard have not been established. The fact that floodwater became deadly does not, by itself, establish negligence by any particular person or institution. ^{149 155 35}

The second victim was a 34-year-old man identified as S.Y. In Ayazağa, Sarıyer, he slipped while trying to cross a flooded road near a guesthouse on Dereboyu Caddesi, struck his head on the curb and could not escape the water. Bystanders pulled him out; he died in hospital. His full name has not been established. Governor Davut Gül separately reported three hospitalized survivors with injuries that were not life-threatening—not a comprehensive count of every injury across Istanbul. ^{187 188 74}

The emergency figures show how quickly the early picture became inadequate. Between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. local time on October 14, authorities received 2,518 notifications, recording 1,277 flooding incidents, 15 landslides and 47 stranding incidents. The Turkish wording counts incidents: it does not establish that precisely 47 people were stranded, as some English reporting rendered it. Notifications, too, can include repeated reports about the same emergency. ^{4 167 26}

By Çiftçi’s October 15 briefing, the citywide notification tally had reached 8,815. A separate municipal update counted 8,515 notifications and 595 people evacuated or rescued by municipal teams. Those 595 were people brought to safety, not an established count of people still trapped, and they must not be added to the broader 2,727 evacuation total. ^{78 59 129}

The minister’s citywide response figures were 46,597 personnel, 2,288 vehicles and 14 boats. Those figures and the earlier government and municipal deployments cover different times and agency scopes; adding them would double-count overlapping resources. Nor does a large evacuation total tell us how many homes remain uninhabitable or how many people cannot yet return. ^{158 11}

At Phoenix Studios in Ayazağa, workers moved upstairs as water rose and electricity was cut. Water reportedly reached approximately two metres in and around the complex. Singer Murat Boz estimated that 200–250 people were trapped; actress Demet Özdemir was there for filming. Their names drew attention, but the emergency concerned an entire workforce trying to stay above the water. ^{107 108}

Later reports described about 120 people on an upper floor. That is not proof that a particular number had already escaped: the estimates may cover different groups, locations or moments. There is no reconciled studio headcount against which to measure the difference. ^{108 178}

Strong currents and conditions initially made a complete nighttime evacuation unsafe. AFAD disaster teams, UMKE medical rescuers, Istanbul firefighters, the Coast Guard, AKUT volunteers and police divers took part in the response. Boat rescues continued into the early hours of October 15, and Boz, Özdemir and other workers were brought to safety. The supported chronology is an overnight rescue into Thursday; the precise reported minute of Özdemir’s evacuation is not independently established. ^{47 44 46}

Çiftçi’s statement supplies an affirmative completion announcement for Ayazağa. It is not a site-specific declaration that every Phoenix Studios occupant has been checked against a final manifest. That remaining accounting gap should not be turned into a claim that the rescued workers are still trapped. People needing accommodation were being housed in public guesthouses. ¹⁸⁰

The rainfall was exceptionally heavy, but the measurements require their time windows. A 30-station dataset, principally covering midnight October 13 through 7:30 a.m. October 15, recorded 269.5 millimetres in Beykoz, 206.1 in Sarıyer and 202.2 in Eyüpsultan. Updated municipal figures reached 273.1, 208.1 and 202.8 millimetres respectively. The updated series’ exact endpoint has not been established, so those amounts cannot responsibly be called single-day totals. ^{102 126 128}

Earlier observations included 193.84 kilograms per square metre at Beykoz–Ömerli and 124.72 at Sarıyer–İTÜ Maslak. One kilogram of water per square metre equals one millimetre of rainfall. But the earlier readings’ full accumulation windows are unavailable: a lower reading from an earlier tally is not necessarily a contradiction, or a measure of the storm’s final peak. ⁴

Governor Gül described the storm as Istanbul’s highest rainfall since meteorological measurements began in 1942—an 84-year comparison. Municipal meteorological language was narrower: one of the highest amounts since 1985, or in recent years. Without matching historical stations and measuring periods, the governor’s broader record claim cannot be independently demonstrated as a like-for-like comparison. The exceptional rainfall is established; its exact historical ranking remains qualified. ^{52 6}

The school suspension now runs through Friday across Istanbul. It is not a blanket university closure; university administrations determine their own arrangements. The additional day allows checks, cleaning and preparation for a prospective Monday, October 19 return, not a guarantee that every institution will be ready or a final reopening decision. ^{56 116 119}

Administrative leave on October 15 and 16 covers specified public employees: disabled and pregnant staff, veterans and disabled veterans, and women with children younger than eight. Exceptions apply in health, security and flood-response roles; mothers of disabled children younger than eight are covered regardless of unit. This is neither a universal employee holiday nor a private-sector shutdown. ^{116 172 174}

Residents were advised to avoid unnecessary travel, and people in basement apartments were advised to spend the night elsewhere. For those households, evacuation means finding somewhere to sleep; for families affected by school closures, it also means arranging care. The number of displaced households and their losses has not yet been established. ²

Ayazağa has an evacuation-completion statement. Istanbul does not yet have a finished account of the human toll. Four people remained missing in the latest established casualty update, while the third victim’s identification and the investigation into the fatal electrical hazard remained unresolved. ^{16 58 35}