Adm. Ossama Rabiee, Chairman and Managing Director of the Suez Canal Authority, has announced that the SCA's maritime salvage team has successfully located the sunken tugboat at km 51.300 (Canal marking). Its recovery and clearing of the waterway will commence within the next few hours. The announcement has been while following-up the salvage efforts from on board the SCA tugboat NABIL EL-HELALY at the incident location.
H.E. pointed out that traffic through the Canal is planned to resume immediately for the north-bound vessels via the bypass at km 61 (Canal marking). The safety of vessels' transit shall be maintained by using warning buoys that will surround the sunken tugboat's location until its recovery.
Adm. Rabiee has stressed that south-bound traffic through the Canal was not interrupted. The entire North convoy transited safely and were not affected by the incident, and as for the South convoy, traffic will go back to normal within two hours at most.
H.E. added that efforts of the maritime salvage team succeeded in rescuing 6 of the sunken tugboat crew members and they have been rushed to the hospital to carry out the necessary checkups where they were all reported to be stable. However, one crew members remains missing, but the search process is still ongoing.