Bosporus, a major waterway that divides Istanbul, was closed to maritime traffic starting at 7:20 a.m. local time on Thursday, media outlets reported. The closure was caused by visibility dropping to half a nautical mile in the area as heavy snowfall started taking hold across Istanbul early Thursday.
The waterway is a crossing point for vessels traveling from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and vice versa and the busiest along with Dardanelles to its southwest. Its status was the subject of a debate recently amid the Ukraine-Russia war as Ukraine asked Turkey to close it to Russian ships.
Bosporus and Dardanelles, also known as the Turkish Straits, are also at the center of international commerce and large malfunctioning commercial vessels occasionally block the passage of others. Bosporus had its fair share of accidents involving ships colliding into one another or into waterfront mansions adorning the sides of the waterway.
