Ship and tanker collide in Aegean Sea, one dead

ATHENS - A Turkish-operated cargo ship sank today after colliding with a Greek tanker in the southern Aegean Sea, killing one Turkish sailor and leaving five sailors missing, officials said.

The cause of the collision was not immediately known, but the area, not far from the major Greek port of Piraeus, is known for its heavy shipping traffic.

Five sailors were missing from the Morocco-bound, Panamanian registered "Han" cargo ship, which was operated by a Turkish ship owner and had a crew of 13, a Turkish Chamber of Maritime Commerce official said.

The collision took place some 16 nautical miles southeast of the island of Hydra, about three hours by ferry from Athens.

"All 11 members of the crew of the Greek tanker are safe and the tanker has also rescued seven crew members from the cargo ship, all of them Turks," a Greek Merchant Marine Ministry official said.

She said the tanker had also picked up the body of the dead crew member, while officials were investigating the cause of the daytime crash. All rescued crew members were flown to a hospital near Athens for medical checks.

Turkish chamber officials said the dead man was a Turk, but the Greek official said: "The nationality of the one dead and those missing are not known."

The collision comes little more than a week after Greek and Turkish F-16 fighters collided over the southern Aegean, where the two Nato allies have long disputed control over air space.

The two nations, which have come to the brink of war in the past over territorial disputes in the region, blamed each other for last Tuesday's air collision, in which the Greek pilot died.

But they hurried to limit damage to ties that have warmed markedly in the past six years.

After the ship collision, several rescue helicopters, three coastguard vessels and a Greek naval frigate as well as smaller private boats were scouring the waters off the island to locate the missing crew members.

"The search and rescue operation has been ongoing for some hours now but they have yet to locate any of the five missing crew. This is a pretty large rescue operation," the ministry official said.

The cargo ship, carrying steel, had left Turkey for the Moroccan port of Casablanca while the Greek tanker had left the nearby oil refinery of Agii Theodori bound for Crete.

The Greek ministry official said the crash had not caused any oil leak from either of the ships.

- REUTERS