A cargo vessel has run aground in Egypt’s Suez Canal.
Key points:
- The MV Glory ran aground on Monday
- Canal tugs are attempting to refloat it
- The boat was headed from Ukraine to China
Canal service firm Leth Agencies said the vessel, MV Glory, ran aground near the city of Qantara, in the Suez Canal province of Ismailia, on Monday.
The firm said canal tugs were trying to refloat the vessel.
A spokesman for the Suez Canal Authority did not respond to calls seeking comment.
The Joint Coordination Centre listed the Glory as carrying over 65,000 metric tonnes of corn from Ukraine bound for China.
Satellite tracking data analysed by The Associated Press showed the Glory in a single-lane stretch of the Suez Canal just south of Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea.
It was not immediately clear what caused the vessel to run aground. Parts of Egypt, including its northern provinces, experienced a wave of bad weather on Sunday.
It is not the first vessel to run aground in the crucial waterway. The Panama-flagged Ever Given, a colossal container ship, crashed into a bank on a single-lane stretch of the canal in March 2021, blocking the waterway for six days.
The Ever Given was freed in a massive salvage operation by a flotilla of tugboats.
The blockage created a massive traffic jam that held up $US9 billion ($12.96 billion) a day in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic.
AP