A Turkish-flagged cargo vessel designated the Tugberk Imamoglu sank following a collision with another ship in the Marmara Sea off Istanbul’s coast. The incident occurred at approximately 3 a.m. when the cargo ship collided with the Turkish tanker Alsu near Silivri, located about 20 miles south of Istanbul. The cargo vessel was transporting rolled steel and was en route from Iskenderun on the Mediterranean coast to Eregli on the Black Sea.
According to Turkey’s General Directorate of Maritime Affairs, 10 crew members were aboard the Tugberk Imamoglu at the time of the collision, including the vessel’s captain. All crew members were Turkish nationals. Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu stated that the sinking occurred rapidly, with the ship going down in approximately 11 minutes. An emergency distress signal was received from the cargo ship, and rescue vessels arrived at the scene by 4:10 a.m., but no survivors have been located.
Search and rescue efforts have been mobilized in response to the incident. Turkish authorities deployed two helicopters and 12 search and rescue vessels to the area to locate the missing crew members. A lifeboat and other debris from the Tugberk Imamoglu have been recovered, though there remains no indication of any surviving crew. Maritime officials reported that the vessel did not respond to communications and crew members’ mobile phones went unanswered.
The incident occurred in one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors. The Turkish Straits, comprising the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, facilitate hundreds of thousands of vessel transits annually between the Mediterranean and Black Seas. This sinking comes as Turkish authorities are simultaneously conducting search operations for a passenger ferry that sank near Cyprus, in which eight people died and 20 remain missing.
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