Three sailors are reported to be missing after a collision took place between the Russian-flagged tanker Glard 2 and the Turkish-flagged fishing vessel Dursun Ali Coskun during the early morning hours of Friday, January 10.
It is said that the collision occurred at the north side of the Istanbul Strait at around 0600 hours local time, causing the fishing boat to capsize and sink.
Three from the six sailors on board at the time have been rescued while the search and rescue operations for the remaining crew members are underway.
It is reported vessel traffic in the Bosphorus has not been affected. However, vessel traffic was suspended at 07:06 hours local time because of the poor visibility due to fog in the area.
It isn’t long ago since one crewman was confirmed dead and three more crew members were unaccounted for, after two Japanese cargo ships collided off the coast of Chiba Prefecture, east Japan, in May.
Namely, the Japanese-flagged general cargo ships ‘Sensho Maru’ and ‘Sumiho Maru’, both 499-ton vessels, collided about 12 km off Cape Inubosaki in Chiba Prefecture at around 2:10 a.m. The ‘Sensho Maru’, carrying about 1,300 tons of steel from Ibaraki Prefecture to Osaka Prefecture, sank as a result of the collision, local media reported.
The captain of the Sensho Maru, was rescued, but as of Sunday evening, three crewmen were still missing, authorities informed. A special rescue team discovered the sunken ship lying on the seabed, where they found one of the ship’s crew members deceased.
