The bulk carrier MV Glory, which was bound for China, was refloated after running aground in the Egyptian waterway of the Suez Canal on Jan. 9, according to the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).
Adm. Ossama Rabiee, chairman and managing director of SCA, said the ship suffered a technical failure 23.6 miles into its passage through the canal. Rabiee did not elaborate on what caused the technical failure.
“H.E. is reassuring the maritime navigation world that traffic through the canal was uninterrupted as 26 North-bound vessels are already in the waterway, and the South-bound convoy will resume its journey right upon the SCA tugboats-assisted transit of MV Glory,” Rabiee said.
The Joint Coordination Center listed the Glory as carrying over 65,000 metric tons of corn from Ukraine bound for China. Built in 2005, the Glory is 738 feet long and 105 feet wide.
Canal services firm Leth Agencies said the MV Glory ran aground near the city of Qantara in the Suez Canal province of Ismailia.
It wasn’t 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 major traffic jam that held up $9 billion daily in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened by the pandemic.
Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal provides a crucial link for oil, natural gas, and cargo. It also remains one of Egypt’s top foreign currency 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 vessels.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
