A cargo ship with a broken rudder was towed back on course by four tugs after striking a floating bridge across the Suez Canal on Wednesday.
The 336m container vessel One Orpheus was part of a convoy transiting the new eastern channel of the Suez canal. The vessel was voyaging from Singapore to the Netherlands. But at Ismail, on the 74km marker, it suffered a rudder malfunction and hit The Martyr Ahmed El-Mansy Floating Bridge.
The Suez Canal Authority deployed four tugs, and recovered the stricken ship. Traffic continued as normal, with a brief interruption to north-bound shipping. The rudder of One Orpheus was repaired and it resumed its journey.
The 15m wide steel bridges, with lanes for pedestrians and for motor vehicles, cross the two channels of the Suez Canal at Ismailia. Each of the two parts consists of three pontoons. They rotate against the banks of the canal to allow the passage of vessels, or the sections can be moved independently to make a narrow channel. The crossing opened in 2017.
