A cargo ship has sunk after colliding with another vessel in the Marmara Sea off Istanbul, with all 10 crew members on board missing, Turkish authorities said. The collision occurred at about 3am local time (00:00 GMT) on Wednesday, more than 20 miles (32 kilometres) south of Silivri, a district on the western outskirts of Istanbul, according to the Istanbul governor’s office.
Contact was lost with the crew of the Tugberk İmamoğlu after it collided with the Turkish-flagged Alsu, which appeared to have escaped significant damage. A lifeboat and other debris believed to belong to the Tugberk İmamoğlu were recovered from the sea, but there was no immediate sign of its crew, Turkey’s General Directorate of Maritime Affairs said.
“It is assessed that the Tugberk İmamoğlu vessel sank because it did not respond to any calls and the mobile phones of the personnel on board went unanswered,” the maritime directorate said. Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said all 10 people aboard the vessel, including the captain, were Turkish nationals.
“We can say that the sinking occurred rapidly in 11 minutes. No one has been found alive,” Uraloğlu said. Search and rescue operations were launched following the collision as authorities raced to locate the missing crew. The 90-metre Tugberk İmamoğlu had been sailing from İskenderun, a major Turkish port on the Mediterranean coast, to Ereğli in the Black Sea while the 91-metre Alsu was travelling from Kocaeli, east of Istanbul, towards Aliağa on Turkey’s Aegean coast, according to vessel-tracking data cited by MarineTraffic.
The collision occurred in one of Turkey’s most heavily trafficked maritime regions. The Turkish Straits system, comprising the Bosphorus and Dardanelles at either end of the Marmara Sea, forms a vital international shipping corridor linking the Black Sea with the Mediterranean and is used by hundreds of thousands of vessels each year.
The incident highlights the significant navigational risks faced by commercial vessels in the congested waterways surrounding Istanbul, where dense traffic, narrow passages and complex maritime conditions make collisions a persistent threat.