Vessel runs aground in Suez Canal, briefly blocking vital waterway

An oil tanker ran aground Wednesday in Egypt’s Suez Canal, briefly blocking the global waterway, an official said.

The Singaporean-flagged Affinity V vessel had become wedged in a single-lane stretch of the canal, said George Safwat, a spokesman for Suez Canal Authority, The Times of Israel reports.

He told a government-affiliated Extra News satellite television the authority that operates the canal deployed tugboats and managed to refloat the vessel. It ran aground around 7:15 p.m. local time, and was refloated some five hours later, he said.

Safwat said there was a problem in the vessel’s steering systems that caused it to run aground.

He said the vessel sailed from Portugal and was en route to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu.

The ship was built in 2016 with a length of 252 meters (827 feet) and a width of 45 meters (148 feet).

The vessel was part of a convoy heading to the Red Sea. The Suez Canal transits two convoys every day, one northbound to the Mediterranean and the other southbound to the Red Sea.