A hair-raising traffic collision in the Suez Canal caused a hiccup in the international flow of goods today.
Two container ships—the German Colombo Express and the Singaporean Maersk Tanjong—collided in the northern part of the canal, the artificial waterway in Egypt which connects the Red Sea and the Mediterranean and is one of the world’s busiest trade routes. According to the Arabic news site, Al-Ahram, the Colombo Express, which was coming in from the Mediterranean Sea, hit the Maersk Tanjong.
Video footage released by the Egyptian news site Port Said Today appears to show the collision between the two ships (the video starts at 2 minutes and 25 seconds):
No casualties have been reported, according to Reuters, but three containers from the Colombo Express fell into the water, and the ship was left with 20-meter (65-foot) dent on its left side. The incident also caused a three-hour delay in canal traffic.