Two people drowned and four others went missing as a Turkish merchant ship collided with another Belize ship in the Adriatic Sea off Italy coast Sunday midday.
The Turkish ship, carrying an 11-strong crew, sank as a result of the accident and the Italian coastguards managed to rescue five crew members, said Fabrizio Matteucci, mayor of Rafina city, southeast Italy.
Search and rescue teams, backed by helicopters, are searching the area, located nearly two nautical miles from the port of Ravenna, to account for the four missing crew members, he told reporters this afternoon.
Matteucci attributed the deadly accident to the bad weather and poor visibility in the area, noting that weather conditions complicate the search and rescue operation.
The accident took place just hours after an Italian passenger ferry caught fire and went adrift near Corfu island in the Ionian Sea to the west of Greece, in the early morning.
Rescuers saved 131 of the 478 passengers and crew members of the ferry; a least one person was killed in the accident.