Cargo ship runs aground in Suez Canal

CAIRO — A cargo vessel ran aground in the Suez Canal on Sunday, but traffic through the global waterway was not impacted, Egyptian authorities said.

The Liberia-flagged MSC Istanbul, which was heading to Portugal from Malaysia, got stuck in a two-lane part of the canal, said Adm. Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority. He added that tugboats were deployed to help refloat the vessel.

Despite the situation, convoys were transiting through the waterway without any problems, Rabei said, without elaborating on what had caused the ship to run aground. The Suez Canal allows for passage of two convoys of vessels a day in both directions. Later Sunday and after a five-hour effort, the MSC Istanbul was refloated.

Built in 2015 and operated by the Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Company, the MSC Istanbul is 1,309 feet long and 177 feet wide, according to Marine Traffic, a vessel-tracking firm.

The vessel’s length is similar to that of the Ever Given, a colossal container ship that crashed into a bank on a single-lane stretch of the canal in March 2021, blocking the waterway. A massive salvage effort by a flotilla of tugboats helped by the tides freed the skyscraper-sized vessel six days later, ending the crisis and allowing hundreds of waiting ships to pass through the canal.

Sunday’s incident was the latest case of a vessel reported stuck in the key global waterway. A tanker transporting liquefied natural gas broke down in the canal last month, also without impacting traffic. In January, a cargo ship carrying corn went aground before being refloated; after a while, traffic through the waterway was restored.