ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Three Turkish Coast Guard personnel were killed on Wednesday after their vessel collided with a bulk carrier in the Bosphorus strait, forcing officials to temporarily suspend traffic in the busy shipping lane.
Their vessel capsized after colliding with the Tolunay, a Cook Island-flagged bulk carrier, which was sailing toward the Black Sea, shipping agent GAC said.
Four members of the Coast Guard were in hospital, a spokesman at the Istanbul governor’s office said.
The collision occurred at 8:40 a.m. (0540 GMT) at the southern end of the strait, it said, adding that traffic was halted until 2:30 p.m. and has resumed.
More than three percent of the world’s crude supply, mainly from Russia and the Caspian Sea, passes through the 17-mile Bosphorus which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. (Reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Daren Butler and Jason Neely)
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