ISTANBUL - A Turkish passenger ferry and a Ukrainian-flagged cargo ship collided off Turkey's biggest city Istanbul on Monday, injuring dozens of passengers, officials said.
"Forty people were taken for treatment to various hospitals," the Istanbul health department said in a statement.
Ahmet Paksoy, the general director of the municipality-owned company that operates the ferry, told the NTV news channel that none of the injuries was serious.
"Most of the people were treated as outpatients and some were taken to hospital," he said.
An investigation was launched to determine the cause of the accident in the Sea of Marmara, the Anatolia news agency said.
The maritime undersecretariat in Ankara said in a statement that the passenger ferry had run into the cargo ship, the Semyon Rudhnev, which was anchored at the time,
In Kiev, the Ukrainian foreign ministry also said the Turkish ferry was at fault.
"According to initial information, the Turkish party is responsible for the accident," it said in a statement, adding that the ship's crew did not suffer any injuries.
The ferry ran into the cargo ship about 20 minutes after it left the quay in Yenikapi, on the city's European side, en route to the island of Avsa, lying some 110 kilometres (68 miles) miles southwest of Istanbul.
Suffering only minor damage, it returned to Yenikapi.
Authorities immediately dispatched ambulances and fire engines to the site.
The Ukrainian ship, which was waiting to take its cargo from Istanbul to sail to Ukraine, also suffered minor damage, Anatolia said.
The Marmara Sea links to the Black Sea via the Bosphorus Strait cutting through Istanbul, a city of 12 million people, and connects to the Aegean Sea through the Dardanelles Strait.
The two straits constitute the main naval route for Ukrainian and Russian vessels to reach the Atlantic via the Mediterranean and are listed among the most crowded waterways of the world.
08/13/2007 15:43 GMT