World Applied Sciences Journal 16 (8): 1158-1162, 2012 ISSN 1818-4952 © IDOSI Publications, 2012

Floods and Drowning Incidents by Floods 1

Adnan Turgut and 2Tevfik Turgut

School of Physical Education and Sports, Akdeniz University, Dumlupinar Bulvari Campus, 07058 Antalya Turkey 2 Research Assistant at Institute of Social Sciences, Akdeniz University, Dumlupinar Bulvari Campus, 07058 Antalya Turkey 1

Abstract: Floods as natural disasters can cause severe even fatal damages to many communities such as loss of lives and properties every year. The aim of this study is to present the risks of floods for the human life and the basic characteristics of the citizens who lose their lives as a result of floods. For this study, online archives related to flood events have been examined via search engines, “www.google.com” and “www.yahoo.com”. A total of 147 citizens (59 females and 88 males) drowned by floods between the years 2006-2010 (Mean age= 27.44 years, age range: 1-82 years). 61 of them (41.49 %) were children and 86 (58.51 %) were adults. To reduce the death toll caused by floods, it is a practical way to improve the sensitivity of the early warning system and disseminate the needed information rapidly. There have been flood caused deaths in big cities, which mean that even big cities are not ready to cope with the risks of floods. The age range of drowned people by floods is quite wide and 61 of the victims are children. For that reason both children and very old people must be kept under observation. Key words: Flood

Death by drowning

Precautions

INTRODUCTION Natural hazards are any natural events happening since the time immemorial which possesses any threat to the natural environment and human population [1] and natural disaster can be defined as ecological disruptions exceeding the adjustment capacity of the affected community. Disasters are generally sudden and unforeseen, serious and cause threat to public health. There are many types of them such as earthquakes, floods, tidal waves, landslides, typhoons, volcanic eruptions [2]. Disasters are natural, technological or human-related events which cause physical, economic and social losses for human being [3]. The natural disasters which are caused by meteorological processes that deliver more precipitation or snow melting run off to a drainage basin that can be readily absorbed or stored in the basin, are called “floods” or “torrents”. Floods in Turkey and throughout the world cause severe damages to many communities such as property damages and death of people every year [4]. Especially river floods have been one of the major natural hazards and yet it was still not possible to cope with floods satisfactorily [5].

Flooded roads In fact, floods are accepted as natural hydro meteorological mechanism, which helps nature establishing its own balance. But because of some factors which drives nature losing its balance, floods sometimes can turn into disasters [6]. There are clearly multiple nonclimatic factors exacerbating flood hazard. Changes in land-use which leads land-cover changes, cause changes of terrestrial (hydrological and ecological) systems and control the rainfall-runoff relations, hence impacting on flood risk. Deforestation and urbanization, elimination of wetlands and wash lands, separation of flood plains from the channel by levees adversely affect flood hazard by reduction of the available water storage capacity. Through urbanization, the proportion of man-built impervious area and the value of runoff coefficient increase (roofs, yards, roads, pavements, parking lots, etc.). This leads to growth in the flood amplitude and reduction in the time-to-peak of a flood [5]. Catastrophic floods endanger lives and cause human tragedy as well as heavy economic losses [7]. Barredo states in his study that an increasing number of flood disasters have occurred in Europe in the last years and high-impact floods have been observed more frequently.

Corresponding Author: Dr. Adnan Turgut, School of Physical Education and Sports, Akdeniz University, Dumlupinar Bulvari Campus, 07058 Antalya Turkey. Tel: +90 242 2274535, Fax: +90 242 2271116.

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The numbers of major floods in Europe have increased in the last few decades and in 2002 the recorded damage sum (over 20 billion Euros) was higher than any other single year before. Because of the increase in the numbers of disasters led European Commission and the Member States of European Union (EU) to understand the importance of the natural hazards issue for the protection of the environment and the citizens in the last decade. Scientific searches have found evidences of an increase in mean precipitation and extreme precipitation events, which implies that extreme flood events might become more frequent [8]. There have been many several flood events and in each the material losses exceeded 10 billions of US Dollars. The numbers of deaths caused by floods, especially in less developed countries, in each flood event are more than thousands. Economic losses caused by weather extremes have increased ten times between the years 1950s and 1990s [5]. Only 11% of the world’s natural hazards affect on average the 50 poorest countries in the world, but they suffer %53 of deaths from disasters each year. On the other hand, developed countries, despite their exposure to %15 of all hazards, have only %1.5 of all deaths caused by hazards [1]. Turkey as a developing country in socio-economic parameters hasn’t still solved the problems to cope with floods as the other less developed or developing countries. Because of the lack of precautions against floods and education on this issue there still occur(s) deaths and economic and environmental losses caused by flood events. Beside its economic losses, floods affect the life of people negatively or they cause deaths. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) states that in the last decade of 20. Century 1.5 billion people were affected by floods.1 There are often people lose their lives due to drowning caused by floods. WMO accounted that in 1980s 700,000 people lost their lives because of meteorological disasters [7]. Different reasons can cause floods. These can be divided into two main groups as “Natural causes” and “Causes created by human being”. As natural causes climate, rivers and their characteristics, geomorphologic characteristics and soil characteristics can be listed. Causes which are created by human being are about how people get on with the nature and where people choose as settling area to found their cities [9]. Floods can be classified into three groups: 1) River floods are the results of intense and /or persistent rain for several days or weeks over large areas. This kind of 1

http://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/hazards/index_en.html

floods is generally the combination of many factors in a given region i.e. weather and soil’s conditions, measures for flood protection, land-use, etc. River floods can also be related to seasonal regimes. 2) Flash floods are mostly local events and scattered in time or space. This kind of floods is the result of intense rainfall over a small area within a short period of time; usually less than 6 hours which causes water rise and fall quite rapidly. 3) Storm surge floods despite their high loss potential for lives and properties are rare events. This type occurs as the water would be pushed onto dry land by onshore winds or storms, mostly on the coast of seas or big lakes [8]. As it is expressed above flood is one of the most effective natural hazards both in the world wide and Turkey and in almost each region of Turkey floods can occur [9]. Kadioglu states that not only the tropical regions of the world is affected by the extreme weather events such as storms and floods caused by heavy rainfalls, but also countries such as Turkey which are not under tropic weather conditions, have more numbers of floods because of global climate change. Only in year 1995 in different cities in Turkey 150 people lost their lives by floods [7]. According to data floods constitute 14% of the disasters occurring in Turkey and floods are one of the most interesting one in terms of their effects with earthquakes [3]. Drowning is the leading cause in deaths by floods. Water as the main element of floods causes people drown in risen or running waters by floods. Drowning is defined as the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid [10]. Aim of this study is to present the risk of floods for the human life and the basic characteristics of the citizens which drown by floods. MATERIALS AND METHODS For this study, online archives related to flood events have been searched via “www.google.com” and “www.yahoo.com” using the keywords “drowning, drowned in flood”. The reports on cases of drowning by floods were collected from national news agencies, Turkish daily newspapers’ websites, national online news websites and regional/ local news websites, the dates of January 1st 2006 and December 31st 2010. The details of the items were examined to find out the personal details of the “flood victims”. Furthermore, details were taken about the location, site of event and number of victims. Only cases resulting in the death of the citizens were

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considered. This study therefore includes every case of fatal immersion in flood including all over Turkey. Citizens, who are lost, died under landslides and buildings because of floods were kept out of the study. In this study, a child is recognized how United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child expresses: “a child means every human being below the age of 18 years” [11]. Due to limited resources on deaths caused by floods only online based news and articles were made use of as the data collecting tools. But as Ghaffar et al., state in their study “Newspaper reports as a source for injury data in developing countries”, in comparison with police data, newspaper data may reflect a higher prevalence of injuries and deaths. Newspapers also provide additional information which is not available from the formal records, such as gender, age and etc. [12].

Table 1: Details of drowned citizens by floods between the years 2006 and 2010 Victims

Female

Male

Total f

Total %

Child

32

29

61

41.49

Adult

29

57

86

58.51

Total

61

86

147

100.00

Mean age*

23.51

30.57

27.44

Age range*

1-80

1-82

1-82

*=years Table 2: Time and place of drowning caused by floods between the years 2006 and 2010 Year

f

%

2006

63

42.9

2007

21

14.3

2008

10

6.8

2009

46

31.3

2010

7

4.8

Total

147

100.0

Seasons

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A total of 147 citizens (59 females and 88 males) drowned by floods between the years of 2006-2010 (Mean age= 27.44 years, age range: 1-82 years). 61 of citizens (41.49 %) were children and 86 of them (58.51 %) were adults. The deaths caused by floods have a clear peak in the years 2006 (42.9 %) and 2009 (31.3 %) and in total rates autumn season has the most of flood events (64.6 %). Most of deaths caused by floods occurred in towns (46.3 %). 108 of deaths (73.5 %) caused by floods occurred on the day time and the rest in dark period of the day (Table 1 and Table 2). During five years period there have also occurred some very tragic incidents. In flash flood in Southeastern Anatolian Region in year 2006 a total number of 48 citizens drowned by floods. A minibus got into flood water, which had fourteen passengers on the way to a town for a wedding ceremony. This incident resulted with the death of eleven citizens. Five of them were from the same family. A whole family (parents and two children) drowned during the same flood event at their own home. Three and four years old siblings also lost their lives by the same flood event. A very ironic incident happened during a flash flood in 2008. A wealthy businessman (48 years old) drove his 3 children (age range: 7-12 years) for camping in the forest to teach them camping and let them know nature better and closer. But in the night because of the heavy rain the river where they pitched up their tent nearby overflowed and got the family in the water. None of them could survive.

Spring

20

13.6

Summer

30

20.4

Autumn

65

64.6

Winter

2

1.4

147

100.0 25.2

Total Place Villages

37

Towns

68

46.3

Cities

42

28.6

Total

147

100.0

One of the worst flood events happened in Marmara Region in 2009, which is a more developed region of Turkey in comparison with the other regions. A total of 30 citizens drowned during this flood event and only in Istanbul as a very big city there were 21 citizens drowned. During this flash flood, a minibus which had 7 women passengers (age range: 22-44 years) who worked in the same factory got into the flood water on the way to work. None of them could survive, but only the driver. Another family tragedy also occurred in this flood event. 5 people from the same family (parents and 3 children aged between 6 and 12 years) drowned at home by flash flood. Despite plenty of studies on floods which mostly examines the financial loss or the effect of floods on environment, unfortunately till now there haven’t been studies done on drowning incidents caused by floods and the basic characteristics of drowned citizens by flood events. This study seems to be one of the first studies that take in consideration the ones who lose their lives by floods. There are only local studies on this issue which only include one flood event in a city or region and don’t

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give any data on drowned citizens by floods. For that reason it was not possible to compare the results of this study with any other scientific studies. CONCLUSION Countries take very important socio-economic decisions to make their communities more developed which are in fact directly in relationship with environment. Those decisions have mostly negative affect on natural biotopes such as topography, soil, flora and fauna and the general ecological environment is affected by those decisions negatively in the end. Those decisions which are seen as beneficial decisions at the beginning in short term, unfortunately cause in the long term loses on both natural life and human life [13]. The importance of the natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes must be taken well in consideration and pre-and post-preventive precautions must be well planned. As in a study called “Suicide after natural disasters”, post-disaster precautions are also needed. For the ones who lost their lives in flood event, there is nothing more to do. But as the study points out suicide rates increased in the four years after floods by 13.8 %, from 12.1 to 13.8 per 100,000. For that reason it is recommended to supply psychological support to the ones who experienced floods to help them coping with trauma [14]. Generally human has four options to protect himself against disasters which are: 1) to protect (prevent and modify disaster, 2) accommodate (change human use system to suit disasters9, 3) to retreat (resettlement in disaster zones, migration), 4) to do nothing. As it is given above it is an important issue where people found their houses. As Chan states the first and second options are first considered as proactive approaches. The third and the fourth ones are more passive responses and have some other difficulties. Especially social attitudes and values must be taken in consideration, especially if resettlement or migration is considered. Because people are mostly endemic at a location and they are grown up attached to their location [15]. To reduce the deaths caused by floods, it is a useful way to improve the sensitivity of the early warning system and disseminate the needed information rapidly. There have been flood caused deaths in big cities which mean that even big cities are not ready to cope with the risks of floods. Most of the flood events occurred in

autumn season. For that reason, especially pre-autumn and during autumn mass media can be used to increase the public awareness on the risk of death caused by floods to prevent public health. The age range of drowned people by floods is quite wide and 61 of the victims are children. For that reason it is suggested that children and very old people be kept under observation. Additionally to educate the authorities and the citizens who work/live on high risky locations is quite important. As in the results presented there have been plenty of deaths in vehicles. Against such a risk public awareness should be increased about the risks of driving on flooded roads. Unaldi suggests that against floods it is important to constitute cooperation between government, universities, local administrations, nongovernmental organizations, private sector, general public and media with the aim of increasing awareness, knowledge and preparedness about natural disasters in Turkey. Each organization and individual should consider himself as a part of the whole [16]. REFERENCES 1.

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