Egyptian rescue divers successfully recovered the body of a crew member from a sunken tugboat in the Suez Canal on Sunday, authorities responsible for the critical water passage said.
“Divers found the body in the cabin of the sunken tugboat,” Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, said in a statement.
The mechanic, El-Sayed Moussa, remained the sole individual among the seven-person crew whose whereabouts were uncertain following the collision between the tugboat and a Hong Kong-flagged tanker transporting liquefied petroleum gas on Saturday.
As per the statement issued on Sunday, five crew members were released from the hospital, while one crew member is still under observation.
Authorities stated that traffic in the Suez Canal remained unaffected as efforts to salvage the sunken vessel were in progress.
Linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal constitutes approximately 10 percent of worldwide maritime trade and handles a significant portion of the world’s sea-based oil transport.
The most recent documented death of a Suez Canal worker was in 2021 during the six-day salvage mission to dislodge the super tanker Ever Given, which had become lodged diagonally in the canal due to a sandstorm.