Turkish maritime authorities announced Wednesday that a cargo ship sank after colliding with another vessel overnight in the Marmara Sea, southwest of Istanbul, with 10 sailors reported missing.
اضافة اعلان
The Turkish Directorate General of Maritime Affairs said in a post on X that an emergency signal received at 3:26 a.m. from an emergency position-indicating radio beacon belonging to a vessel in the Marmara Sea Traffic Separation Scheme, off the coast of Silivri, had been detected through a satellite-supported search and rescue system.
The statement added that the signal was identified as belonging to the vessel Togberk Imamoglu. Turkish radio authorities subsequently established contact, and at 3:41 a.m., the captain of the oil tanker informed the Vessel Traffic Services Center that his ship had collided with an unidentified vessel at around 3:15 a.m.
The directorate said that after examining the signal received through the agency’s COSPAS-SARSAT system and conducting a subsequent investigation, authorities determined that a collision had occurred between the oil tanker, which was carrying 2,999 tons of engine oil and traveling from Kocaeli to Aliağa through the Marmara Sea Traffic Separation Scheme, and a dry cargo ship carrying 4,199 tons of coiled steel sheets from Iskenderun to Karadeniz Ereğli.
The statement said search and rescue operations began immediately, with the first maritime unit dispatched to the area at 4:10 a.m. As there was no response to any calls and crew members did not answer their mobile phones despite repeated attempts by the Search and Rescue Coordination Center, authorities concluded that the dry cargo ship had likely sunk.
Source: Agencies
