A container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal, causing a shutdown in traffic in one of the most congested trade waterways in the world, news agency Reuters reported. The 2,00,000-tonne vessel, en route from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, ran aground at about 7:40am (05:40 GMT) on Tuesday after the ship suffered a blackout.
Tug boats are on the way to deal with the blockage. Bloomberg Quint reported that about 42 vessels, either in the northbound convoy or arriving to transit the canal northbound, are now waiting for the grounded vessel to be re-floated, with about 64 vessels traveling southbound also affected.
Nearly 19,000 ships, or an average of 51.5 ships per day, with a net tonnage of 1.17 billion tonnes passed through the canal during 2020. About 12 per cent of the world trade volume passes through the man-made canal.
-Inputs from agencies
