Ship briefly grounded in Suez Canal is refloated

theguardian.com:

A ship was briefly stuck in the Suez Canal after running aground, before being successfully refloated after an hour and 16 minutes, a shipping agent said.

The ship, which Leth Agencies identified early on Thursday as Xin Hai Tong 23, a 190-metre bulk carrier, was freed by tugboats from the Suez Canal authority.

The Marine Traffic ship tracker and Refinitiv data had shown live updates of the ship, which sails under the Hong Kong flag, as “not under command” near the southern end of the canal, positioned at an angle next to the canal’s eastern side, surrounded by three Egyptian tugboats.

In 2021 the 400-metre, 220,000 tonne container ship Ever Given became lodged in the Suez canal for nearly a week, disrupting trade on a global scale.

The operation to free the Ever Given caused a backlog that delayed the journeys of hundreds of ships, forcing some to take a much longer route around the southern tip of Africa.

Last year tug boats refloated an oil tanker that was briefly stranded in the canal after a technical fault with its rudder, while the breakdown of a container ship caused minor delays in March.