A cargo ship got stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Monday, a canal service firm said. It was not immediately clear whether canal traffic was affected.
Leith agencies said the ship, MV Glory, got stuck near the city of Qantara in the Suez Canal province of Ismailia. The firm said canal tugs were trying to refloat the vessel.
The authorities had no information on what caused the ship to run aground. Parts of Egypt, including the northern provinces, were hit by a wave of bad weather on Sunday.
Satellite tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed the majesty in a one-lane stretch of the Suez Canal south of Port Said on the Mediterranean.
A spokeswoman for the canal authority declined to comment, saying a statement would be issued.
It was not the first ship to get stuck in the vital waterway. The Panama-flagged Ever Given, a huge container ship, crashed into a bank on a single-lane section of the canal in March 2021, blocking the waterway for six days.
Ever Given was freed in a massive rescue operation by a flotilla of tugboats. The blockage caused a massive traffic jam, knocking out $9 billion a day in global trade and straining supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Joint Coordination Center listed Glory as carrying more than 65,000 metric tons of corn from Ukraine bound for China.
Glory was inspected by the Joint Coordination Center of Istanbul on 3 January. The center is comprised of Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian and UN staff.
Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal provides an important link for oil, natural gas and cargo. It is one of Egypt’s top foreign exchange earners. In 2015, the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi completed a major expansion of the canal, allowing it to accommodate the world’s largest ships.
Glory is 225 meters (738 ft) tall. It was unclear whether the ship was stuck in the canal like Ever Given, which would have made it difficult to free that ship.