Hong Kong ship briefly blocks the Suez Canal
A Hong Kong-flagged ship was briefly stranded in Egypt’s crucial Suez Canal, although authorities said they had been able to refloat it after it temporarily blocked traffic Thursday morning.
The Xin Hai Tong 23 became stuck at the Canal’s southern approach, according to a statement from the organization that manages the navigable passage. The ship was being moved to another area by three tugboats after an “emergency failure” caused it to stop sailing, the Suez Canal Authority said.
Shipping traffic had returned to normal on the canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Leth Agencies, which oversees traffic, had said earlier that four other ships had been held up waiting when the cargo ship became stranded.
The ship was a freighter about 190 meters (625 feet) in length.
The Ever Given, a huge container ship that hit the side of the canal in March 2021 and became stuck in a one-way stretch in March 2021, was larger. A major rescue effort by a flotilla of tugboats, combined with tides, managed to free the ship six days later. In the time it took to free the giant ship, hundreds of vessels had accumulated waiting to pass through the channel.