Five people were injured in the collision between a tanker and a high speed Turkish ferry boat in Bosphorus strait near the Turkish city of Istanbul on Friday evening.
Turkish ferry captain Sercan Karabiyik told media that five people, including four passengers and one crew member, were injured in the accident and sent to hospital for treatment.
The collision happened when the Yenikapi-1 ferry boat was arriving at Kabatas on the European side of the Bosphorus from Bostanci on the Marmara coast on the Asian side. The ferry was hit by a Amur 2521 tanker from behind near Maiden’s Tower at the entry of the Bosphorus around 7: 25 p.m. local time.
Amur-2521, Belize Flag, 115 metres, coming from Georgia, Batumi and bound for Ravenna, Italy .
So far, the Bosphorus is open to traffic, although departures from Kabatas, which is one of the busiest transportation stations located near Dolmabahce Palace, have been temporarily halted.
Istanbul police is investigating the incident.
This is not the first time such incident takes place in the Turkish waters
In 1994, a Greek Cypriot-flagged tanker collided with a freighter off Istanbul’s Bosporus Strait, killing 27 people.
The worst accident took place in 1979 when an oil tanker exploded, killing 43 seamen.
Turkey is concerned about the environmental risks and for this reason it wants to shift the tanker traffic in the straits and use pipelines for oil and gas exports in an attempt to avoid any major catastrophe.
Agencies
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.