Sailors work on a damaged Turkish ferry after its collision with a freighter yesterday.

ISTANBUL (AP) - A Turkish ferry rammed head-on into a Ukranian-flagged freighter ship anchored off the northwest coast yesterday, slightly injuring 40 ferry passengers, officials said.

The ferry, although damaged, returned to port in Istanbul shortly after the accident. Ambulances and helicopters took the injured to nearby hospitals, the Maritime Affairs office said in a statement.

Tolga Uyar, a spokesman for the ferry company, said, «(the injured) are not in serious condition and are being transferred to local hospitals,» adding that most of the injured passengers hit their heads on seats or other parts of the ferry during the collision.

Uyar said the accident occurred when the ferry, named Salih Reis-4, rammed the anchored freighter Semyon Rudnev. It was not clear whether anyone was injured aboard the freighter, which was also slightly damaged.

«We panicked a lot; I am still trembling,» the private Dogan news agency quoted Cigdem Mutlu, who was traveling with her 6-year-old daughter, as saying. «We first heard the screams of other passengers, then everybody started shouting and we were all pushed forward. Everybody took out life jackets, many people had head injuries and some were bleeding.»

The accident occurred near the entrance to Istanbul's busy Bosporus, a narrow waterway which bisects the city and is part of the only sea link between the Black and the Mediterranean seas.