Containership Strikes Floating Bridge in the Suez Canal

A container ship collided with a floating bridge in the eastern lane of the Suez Canal on Wednesday but the passage of ships through the waterway was not interrupted, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said.

Tugboats helped the One Orpheus after it suffered a fault with its rudder while transiting the canal on its way from Singapore to the Netherlands, the authority said in a statement.

The incident occurred in the eastern lane of the middle section of the canal, built as an expansion that was completed in 2015.

Convoys of ships coming from the south were diverted along the original branch of the canal, and the One Orpheus along with six ships behind it resumed their journeys after the faulty rudder was repaired, the canal authority said.

The Suez Canal is one of the world's most heavily used shipping lanes and an important source of foreign currency for Egypt.

Works are currently under way to expand the southern, single-lane section of the canal, after a giant container ship ran aground there in 2021, blocking traffic through the waterway for six days.

(Reuters - Reporting By Yomna Ehab; Writing by Moaz Abd-Alaziz; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Mark Porter)