Life in some parts of the coastal Black Sea region has been paralyzed since Monday night, when hours of heavy rainfall led to flooding and landslides in many areas, including Giresun, Trabzon, Rize and Ordu. In Giresun, hit by flooding for the second time in a week, the city's infrastructure, homes and businesses have sustained considerable damage. Some have blamed the coastal highway for the extensive damage in Giresun, claiming that the road, positioned between coastal cities and the Black Sea, blocks rainwater from draining out to sea, leading to flooding.Professor Mehmet Çakıroğlu, the dean of Ondokuz Mayıs University's department of architectural engineering, begs to differ, saying that the coastal highway bears little effect on flooding. While the road does constitute a barrier between the city and the sea, this was taken into consideration during its construction, he says. “In 1960, Giresun was flooded. Did the coastal highway exist then? The real problem here is poor city planning. If buildings are raised on riverbanks, rivers narrowed and problems with infrastructure and canalization left unaddressed along with poor construction, then flooding becomes inevitable. If the city had been better planned, perhaps the damage caused by the flood would not have been so great,” he said. The coastal highway was built in the '90s.
Hızır Önsoy, a professor at Black Sea Technical University's department of architectural engineering, is another academic who disagrees with suggestions that the coastal highway played a major role in the Giresun disaster, saying: “The root cause of the flooding is construction on riverbanks and the municipality's failure to seek scientific consultation prior to construction. Infrastructure needs to be brought up to flood-prevention standards, and people need to be educated on this topic. For example, in villages, people can build wherever they want; then when flooding or landslides occur, there is loss of life. The public needs to be educated, the possible dangers need to be explained and permission should not be given for construction on riverbanks or in zones at high risk for landslides.”
