JINHA

ARTVİN - After eight people died in the town of Hopa, Turkey, local women say the state is to blame. They have called for an end to the devastation of the environment for profit.

A flood devastated the Black Sea town of Hopa, Turkey earlier this week, killing eight. Women in the town are attempting to recover from the damage. They have denounced the environmental devastation that led to flood and have called for the town to be declared an emergency zone.

Ebru Demir lives in the Kemalpaşa area of Hopa. She said the only reason for the flood was the massive disturbance to the environment in the Black Sea region. Companies have built a high number of hydroelectric plants and mines in the region. The recent "Green Road" project aims to bring a highway to the isolated highland plateaus of the region, further threatening the sensitive ecosystem. Environmental engineers have stated that the cause of the disaster was the building of dams and hydroelectric plants along the mountain creeks that feed into the Black Sea.

"Then they come and call this a 'natural disaster,'" said Ebru, who has lost loved ones in the flood. She said that local people retrieved their dead themselves. "[The state] didn’t even send helicopters. It's like there's no state here. Before any aid even came, the riot forces came." The roads to many villages remained flooded with mud.

"All we wanted was that the creeks keep flowing," said 65-year-old Emine Sefer, who has lived in Hopa her entire life. "They cut off the routes of the creeks, so the creeks overflowed. But the creeks and the rain are not guilty here. The ones who sold the creeks and made money off them are guilty."

(aç-ck/gc/cm)