CAIRO — An oil tanker ran aground Wednesday in Egypt’s Suez Canal, briefly blocking the global waterway, an official said.
The Singaporean-flagged Affinity V vessel had become wedged in a single-lane stretch of the canal, said George Safwat, a spokesman for Suez Canal Authority.
He told a government-affiliated Extra News satellite television the authority that operates the canal deployed tugboats and managed to refloat the vessel. It ran aground around 7:15 p.m. local time, and was refloated some five hours later, he said.