An oil tanker ran aground Wednesday in Egypt’s Suez Canal, briefly blocking traffic in the global waterway before it was freed, the canal’s authority said.
The Singaporean-flagged Affinity V vessel had become wedged in a single-lane stretch of the canal, the Suez Canal Authority’s head Osama Rabie said in a statement issued by the body.
He said that five of the authority’s tug boats managed to get the vessel floating again in a coordinated operation. He said a technical failure in the boat’s steering mechanism caused it to hit the bank of the canal, and that navigation for other ships passing through the canal had returned to normal.
A spokesman for Suez Canal Authority told the government-affiliated Extra News satellite television channel that the ship ran aground around 7.15 p.m. local time, and was floating again some five hours later.
Geroge Safwat said the vessel was part of a convoy heading south to the Red Sea. Two convoys transit through the Suez Canal every day; one north-bound to the Mediterranean and the other south-bound to the Red Sea. The man-made waterway divides continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula, and provides a crucial link for oil, natural gas and cargo.
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