A cargo ship sank in the Marmara Sea off Istanbul after colliding with a second vessel before dawn on Wednesday, leaving Turkish authorities searching for 10 crew members who were believed to have been on board.
The transport ministry's maritime directorate said the empty oil tanker ALSU collided with the Tuğberk İmamoğlu, a cargo ship carrying rolled steel, at about 3:15 a.m. The cargo ship sank shortly after the impact. Officials said the collision took place 18 nautical miles, or about 33 kilometres, off the Silivri district on the western edge of Istanbul province.
The maritime directorate said it had been unable to reach the Tuğberk İmamoğlu by radio or by mobile phone after the accident, leading it to believe the dry cargo ship had gone under. Search-and-rescue teams later found life-saving equipment, including a lifeboat belonging to the vessel that had been carrying 10 crew members, but the crew were not inside it. Fourteen search-and-rescue vessels were dispatched to the area and a helicopter joined the effort, according to the directorate.
The ALSU was also damaged in the collision and was helping with the search, officials said. The ministry said the cargo ship was carrying 4,200 tons of rolled sheet metal at the time of the accident. The directorate initially said the tanker had been carrying 3,000 tonnes of motor oil, but later corrected that detail and said the vessel was empty, a point also confirmed by the governorate.
The incident added to a difficult stretch for maritime safety in the region. The Euronews report said it came three days after a deadly ferry accident off Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, where eight Turkish nationals died and rescuers were still looking for another 20 people listed as missing. That comparison underlined how quickly a sea accident can become a large-scale rescue operation when crews go missing and the weather, visibility or collision circumstances remain unclear.
For now, the key questions are basic: how the vessels came together, whether the Tuğberk İmamoğlu can be located, and whether anyone can be found alive after the sinking. Turkish officials have not yet given a cause for the collision, and the report says authorities are concentrating on search and rescue rather than assigning blame. The location, near one of the busiest maritime corridors around Istanbul, makes the accident especially significant for shipping traffic through the approaches to the city.
The early response suggests that officials still hope to account for the missing crew, but the discovery of the lifeboat without anyone inside it points to the seriousness of the incident. As the search continued, the main focus remained on the ten people listed as missing and on confirming the sequence of events that led the cargo ship to sink so quickly after the collision.
