Oil tanker briefly blocks Suez Canal; freed within hours

An oil tanker ran aground in Egypt’s Suez Canal, briefly blocking the global waterway before it was freed, the canal’s authority said.

The Singaporean-flagged Affinity V vessel had become wedged in a single-lane stretch of the canal Wednesday, the Suez Canal Authority’s head Osama Rabie said in a statement issued by the body.

He said that five of the authority’s tug boats managed to get the vessel floating again in a coordinated operation. He said a technical failure in the boat’s steering mechanism caused it to hit the bank of the canal, and that navigation for other ships passing through the canal had returned to normal.