Ukraine Cargo Ship Grounded in Bosporus, Traffic Halted

By Staff, Agencies

Maritime traffic at Istanbul's Bosporus waterway was suspended on Monday after a cargo ship travelling from Turkey to Ukraine ran aground.

The incident with the Palau-flagged vessel called the MKK 1 has not resulted in damage, according to Turkish authorities. However, it has blocked all traffic in the highly important waterway.

According to maritime vessel traffic websites, several tugboats are involved in the rescue of the 142-meter vessel.

The freighter experienced a rudder failure at around 07:30 am local time.

In a Tweet, the Turkish coast guard authority said that it had promptly dispatched five tugboats to the scene.

The Bosporus Strait connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and is one of the world's busiest maritime passages. By some estimates, around 48,000 ships pass through the strait each year, which can be challenging to navigate partly due to the narrow width of some parts of the waterway.

A similar incident involving a Ukrainian ship occurred in September last year after it collided with another vessel and briefly ran aground.

The last major accident on the Bosporus was in 2019 when a Liberian-flagged cargo ship ran off course and collided with Istanbul's coast, forcing Turkish authorities to close the waterway.

The Bosporus is one of the world's most important choke points for maritime oil transports, with more than three percent of global supply - mainly from Russia and the Caspian Sea - passing through the 27km waterway.

In the past Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a new canal to be built that would ease traffic on the Bosporus shipping route.