A vessel is seen in the Bosphorus Strait, Istanbul, Turkey, on Jan. 21, 2019. The Turkish authorities imposed a record amount of fines on vessels that polluted the seas surrounding the country's biggest city Istanbul during the past year. The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality announced lately on its website that a total of 87 ships got fined last year with 5.7 million Turkish liras (about 1.1 million U.S. dollars) for polluting the Black Sea, the Marmara Sea and the Bosphorus Strait. (Xinhua/Xu Suhui)
ISTANBUL, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish authorities imposed a record amount of fines on vessels that polluted the seas surrounding the country's biggest city Istanbul during the past year.
The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality announced lately on its website that a total of 87 ships got fined last year with 5.7 million Turkish liras (about 1.1 million U.S. dollars) for polluting the Black Sea, the Marmara Sea and the Bosphorus Strait.
The single heaviest penalty, 2.7 million liras, went to a vessel that ejected petroleum-derived wastes into the Marmara Sea, the statement said.
Turkey renewed its environmental policies last year to effectively combat pollution, increasing the penalties against vessels by 12 times.
The authorities have been monitoring the vessels with two hydroplanes, four drones and 81 high-resolution cameras, and the vessels are found to have mostly dumped solid garbage, petroleum-derived wastes and ballast trash.
The 30-km-long Bosphorus flowing between the Asian and European parts of Istanbul is among the busiest waterways in the world with a high volume of transit vessels.
