Rare tornado kills four at Turkish construction site

Four construction workers were killed Tuesday morning when a tornado struck a building site in the southern Turkish city of Antalya. The storm, which hit in the early morning hours, destroyed a temporary residential container where the workers were staying and toppled a crane at the site. A fifth worker was injured in the incident.

According to Antalya province governor Hulusi Sahin, three of the workers killed were Syrian nationals. The additional worker, who was in a different container at the site, was injured, though details of his condition had not been released by the afternoon.

The tornado struck the Kepez district of Antalya shortly after Turkey's meteorological service issued a warning for heavy rain in the area. The storm destroyed the container housing the workers and brought down a heavy crane that was on the construction site.

Despite the severity of the damage at the construction site, local authorities reported no additional damage in other areas of the Kepez district or in Antalya itself. The city, considered a major tourist destination in Turkey, is scheduled to host the UN's COP31 climate conference next month.

Tornadoes are not entirely unknown along Turkey's Mediterranean coast, but cases in which they cause human fatalities are considered rare. The current disaster comes just weeks after severe flooding in Istanbul, the country's largest city, claimed the lives of eight people.