Hundreds of ships were left unable to move between the Black Sea and the Aegean after Turkey closed the Dardanelles Strait to clear the area of planes fighting nearby forest fires.
Around 300 ships were waiting to cross the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits as of Wednesday afternoon, according to Mustafa Can, president of Istanbul-based shipping company Transbosphor.
The disruption could start to affect transport fares if the fires in Turkey’s Canakkale province are not put out in the coming days, Can said by phone. The Coast Guard said the Dardanelles would remain closed until at least Thursday to allow firefighting aircraft to operate.
North-south traffic was also suspended in the Bosphorus strait that runs through Istanbul, after an oil tanker sailing from Russia to China, called the Guanyin, suffered a mechanical failure near the waterway’s entrance.
