A Small Disaster in Istanbul

I'm sure none of you follow the news/weather here in Istanbul unless it's something really momentous, but I thought several might be interested in what happened here in the past few days.

This weekend we have a really raging windstorm -- pieces of roofs of buildings were being blown into the street, and the power was out in our neighborhood. Luckily, our Center has a generator, so we were only down for a minute or so, periodically, until our own power kicked on. It was cold and rainy, and just generally yucky.

But the biggest consequence of the storm was that one of the main boat docks located just where the Horn and the Bosphorus meet (the one at Karaköy if you want to check a map) is now gone. Not only is it used by locals crossing between Asia and Europe and as a stop for the ferries that carry local passengers up the Bosphorus from the Horn, it is the main dock for international passenger ferries to arrive, if my information is correct.

It sank -- slowly. In fact, one of our Fellows, Canan, was apparently on it as it was sinking, but she has not been around to ask about it (yes, she is ok). It was a very slow process, and the local news documented it. We went by the spot yesterday and they seemed to have a crane by the edge of the water, and a lot of onlookers. We don't know if they are trying to raise the dock in one piece, or just get the flotsam out of the waterway.

Just a bit of interesting news from Istanbul.