2023-08-07 05:13:24
A tragedy occurred on Saturday on the Suez Canal. A tugboat sank and the body of a member of its crew was recovered after a collision with an oil tanker flying the Hong Kong flag, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said on Sunday evening.
“Divers found the body in the cabin of the sunken tug,” said Oussama Rabie, director of the SCA. The victim, a mechanic, was the only one of the seven crew members missing after the collision of the tug with the tanker carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
Traffic briefly interrupted
A search was underway to find him, while the other six crew members were hospitalized. Five of them have already been discharged from hospital, the statement said.
Northbound traffic through the canal was briefly interrupted after the collision, the Authority of this crucial trade route in eastern Egypt, which handles 10% of the world’s maritime trade, said earlier.
Brief disruptions caused by broken down or grounded vessels are common in the waterway. In March 2021, the Ever Given, a giant container ship whose bow had become embedded in the eastern bank of the canal, blocked the traffic route between Europe and Asia for several days. The disruption cost billions of dollars in delayed deliveries, with Egypt losing between $12 million and $15 million a day in the shutdown. The Suez Canal, however, brought in Egypt, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, around 8.6 billion euros over the fiscal year 2022-2023, a new record.
#collision #tug #oil #tanker #leaves #dead