ISMAILIA- Spokesman for the Suez Canal Authority George Safwat said the New Suez Canal helped facilitate marine traffic even after the MSC ISTANBUL container ship had run aground in the old canal on Sunday.
During a phone interview with Sada El Balad satellite TV channel on Sunday evening, the spokesman stressed the vital role of the New Suez Canal project, launched by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in 2014, and inaugurated one year later.
Safwat said thanks to the authority’s very professional handling of the grounding issue, traffic across the canal had not been affected at all.
Earlier today, the SCA Chairman Osama Rabie said that the authority dispatched four tugboats to refloat the stranded MSC ISTANBUL container ship.
The four tugboats freed the vessel in less than four hours, the spokesman said.
The container ship was crossing the waterway within the south convoy on its route from Malaysia to Portugal.
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