Suez Canal

The Suez Canal is a Work of art located in Egypt, length 173 km, broad of 190m and major of 20m, which connects the port city of Port-Saïd on the the Mediterranean and the town of Suez on the Red Sea, thus making it possible to connect the two seas.

It allows the Navire S of going from Europe in Asia without having to circumvent the Africa by the Cape of Good Hope. Before its opening in 1869, the goods were to be transported by ground between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

With the increase in the traffic, the channel became the 3rd source in currencies of Egypt. An accident or blocking of the channel would involve losses of approximately seven USD million per day.

History

Antiquity

It is probable that during, the Pharaon Sésostris {{III}} (- 1878/-1839) made dig a directed channel of west in is through Wadi Tumilat, making join the the Nile and the Red Sea, in order to be able to trade with the Your Netjer , allowing thus directly the exchanges between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Evidence indicates its existence at least to during the reign of Ramsès {{II}}. It was then given up and according to the Greek historian Hérodote, of work to give the channel in state would have been undertaken towards -600 by Nékao {{II}}, although it never finished this project.

The channel was finally finished by the king Darius {{Ier}}, conquering it Perse of Egypt. Darius commemorated its realization by various granite steles laid out on banks of the Nile, of which that of Kabret, to 200 km of Magpie. The inscription of Darius known as:

King Darius said: I am a Persia. Apart from Persia, I conquered Egypt. I ordered this channel dug since the river called the Nile which runs in Egypt with the sea which starts in Persia. When this channel was dug as I ordered, from the boats went from Egypt as far as Persia, as I had it voulu.

The channel was again restored by Ptolémée {{II}} towards -250. During thousand years which followed, it successively was modified, destroyed and rebuilt, until it is finally abandoned at the 8th century by the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansour.

Contemporary time

The Saint-Simoniens, as of the years 1820, had considered the construction of a channel connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. A first project of channel was presented to the Egyptians in 1833 by one of them, Prosper Enfantin, engineer and economist French.

The project then did not hold the attention of the viceroy of Egypt Mehmet-Ali. The Saint-Simonians continue however their efforts and create in 1846 a Survey firm for Suez Canal. This company concluded a task importante : the realization of a precise topographic levelling of the isthmus. The first levelling carried out at the time of the campaigns of Napoleon had indeed given a clear difference of altitude (ten meters of variation) between Rouge sea surface and of the Mediterranean. New levelling showed that this difference was actually very faible : the realization of a channel without lock was possible.

As the channel can be used only with boats using an engine and that in 1860 only 5 % of the ships ran on the vapor, its construction was a bet. In the following decade the merchant navy was equipped in mass.

The company of Ferdinand de Lesseps built the channel between 1859 and 1869. At the end of work, the Egypt for 44 % and: 21000 French were jointly owners.

It is estimated that 1,5 million Egyptians took part in the construction of the channel and that: 125000 died, mainly of the Choléra. Especially designed machines helped them.

The February 17th 1867, the first ship borrowed the channel, but the inauguration awaited the November 17th 1869. The empress Eugenie was present. The Foreign debt of Egypt forced this one to sell its shares with the the United Kingdom at price of aubaine which thus ensured its road of the India S. Of the British troops were installed on banks of the channel to protect it in 1882 and replaced the Ottoman Empire as tutor of the country.

The October 29th 1888, the Convention of Constantinople confirmed the neutrality of the channel, declared “free and opened, in time of war as in times of peace, with any war or tradind ship, without reference to house”.

Later, during the First World War, the British negotiated the Accord Sykes-Barb which divided the the Middle East in order to move away the French influence from the channel.

The value of the actions was multiplied several times; they belonged to the middle-class inheritance of reference.

The July 26th 1956, Nasser nationalized the company of the channel with an aim of financing the construction of the Barrage of Aswan following the refusal of the the United States to provide funds. In reprisals, the Egyptian assets were cold and removed food aid. The principal shareholders of the channel were then British and French. Moreover Nasser denounces the colonial presence of the United Kingdom in the Middle East and supports the nationalists in the Guerre of Algeria. The United Kingdom, France and Israel launched out in an military operation, baptized “operation musketeer”, on October 29th, 1956.

The operation of Suez lasted one week. The the United Nations confirmed Egyptian legitimacy however and condemned forwarding free-israélo-British by a resolution.

After the War the Six Day old of 1967, the channel remained closed until in 1975, a gripping force of the peace of UNO remaining on the spot until in 1974.

Characteristics

The channel does not comprise a lock S, all its way remaining with the sea level, contrary with the Canal of Panamá. Its layout is based on three water levels, the Manzala lakes, Timsah and Amer.

The channel allows the passage of ships of 17 m Tirant of water, of work are designed to allow the passage of larger ships drawing up to 22 m from here 2010. The ships having dimensions authorizing them to cross the channel are called Suezmax .

Its average width is of 365 m (initially 52 m). Its minimal width is of 300 Mr. the navigable width under 11 m of water is 190 m (initially 44 m). Located on both sides, of the channels of derivation increase the overall length of the work to 195 km.

Some: 15000 ships cross the channel each year, accounting for 14% of the world transport of goods. A passage takes from 11 to 4 p.m.

The crossing of the channel, is ensured most of the time by vats. Until these last years, the only permanent passage was between the lakes Amers and Suez. It is about the tunnel Ahmed Hamdi , a five kilometers length, dug under the channel. Inaugurated in 1980, it is used by the Egyptian motorists to go in the peninsula of the Sinai and to gain the seaside resorts of the Red Sea.

A bridge, built between 1992 and 1999, spans the channel on the level of El Qantara (Arab word meaning “bridge”) leaving free a space of 68 meters to the top of the channel (Tirant of maximum air for the ships).

Environment

From the environmental point of view, in addition to the effects of the building site which was neither the subject of impact study, nor of conservative measure or compensatory, the construction of the channel had like first effect physically to isolate Africa from Asia, for all the nonflying species. It is the first ecological cut so important ever conceived and carried out by the Man, before that of Panama which separated two Americas, of North and the South.

The transfer of million m ³ of water via the channel while putting in contact two seas separated since from the hundreds of million years was the occasion of massive transfers of species and parasites or microbes, whose some have an invasive potential , either by the channel, or by the water of Ballast of the ships or by the Propagule S transported under their hull.

Smoke and exhaust fumes of the ships are a contribution minor (but nonnull) to climate warming. They however contribute to acidify the air and the rains (cf heavy Fuel badly desulphured or not desulphured) and to modify the Albédo (nucleate sulfur the water drops and moves the places of formation of the clouds). However, according to the CEDAR, the Mediterranean basin emitted as many these gases that 85 - 90% of the total emissions of area N.E. The Atlantic proportionally much vaster.

Admittedly, Panama and Suez Canal made it possible to avoid nautical million miles each year as well as a dangerous navigation in the south of Cape Horn or the south of Africa, but grace or because of Suez Canal, the Mediterranean commercial traffic more than was multiplied by ten with today, on a zone covering less than 1% of all the oceans, approximately 30% of the volume of the world sea traffic coming from this zone or arriving there or crossing it (without direct economic interest for its 305 ports and the littoral areas of the Mediterranean, and without écotaxe). The CEDAR estimates that 50% of the goods transported in this " corridor " must be " regarded as dangerous with different degrés". The risk of a serious oil slick persists, with 28% of the world maritime oil traffic forwarding by the Mediterranean where the storms are sometimes violent in spite of a reputation of sea calm and relatively punt

Maritime security

In spite of increased measures of precaution and safety; in addition to the risk of attacks or terrorist acts on ships to some extent trapped in the channel, the accident risks persist.

Accidents

The risk of oil slick is more fears, already in 1956, when Nasser nationalized the Company of Suez Canal, 50% of the French oil provisioning and British passed there.

Accident of Al Samidoun (January 2005),
that of the Oil of bast house Grigoroussa 1 which ran up against on February 27th, 2006 a bank in the southern part of the channel, losing approximately: 3000 tons of heavy fuel, on: 58000 tons, in a plume of pollution which reached 20 km length, before one could surround it by floating booms and tow it to the wearing of Suez, authorities of the channel not having then detailed measurements of depollution which could have been undertaken;
in September 2006, it is a boat used for the maintenance of Suez Canal, the Khattab , which made shipwreck in middle of the night (two died, six wounded and five missings) close to Ismaïlia.

Terrorist attacks

The “bottlenecks” do not allow the growth of the traffic nor of the size of the cargo liners. They are places of vulnerability vis-a-vis the accident risks and terrorist attacks. The Limbourg , oil French was the Al-Qaida target, in 2002, in coastal area of the Yemen). They for that are regarded as " Achilles' heels of the oil economy mondiale" , like the east also the Strait of Ormuz (30% of oil tonnage). This is why naval bases and a fleet of war are maintained permanently in the area by the USA (5th world fleet in the West of the Indian Ocean, and 4th in the Mediterranean), assisted by France with Djibouti, and by the United Kingdom with Oman. The channel thus contributed to the militarization of the zone.

Transit

The transit of the ships is organized in alternate convoys (southern - > northern and northern - > southern). Only one convoy per day on the way towards north and two convoys on the way towards the South. The ships pass each other with large the Bitter Lac mainly. A second crossing is done for the second convoy on the way Southern with the by-pass of El Ballah.

Each ship embarks before its departure one or two pilot (S) like one or two boat (S) armed (S) with Lamaneur S plus an electrician.

The regulation also requires that the ships in transit be equipped with an approved projector. This projector placed at the Prow, makes it possible to light if need be, the banks if a sand wind would reduce the visibility. It is possible to rent a projector approved near the authorities of the channel.

The pilots of the channel are here responsible for the respect of the order envisaged in the convoys, as well as passage in time and hour with several semaphores (or stations) placed along the channel.

Stations of signals of Suez Canal

The stations are present every approximately 10 km.

Port Saïd

Râs el 'Ish
El Tîna
El Câp
El Quantara

El Ballâh (By-pass)

El Firdân
El Ismâ 'ilîya
Tûsûn
Outfall

bitter Big lake

El Kabrît
El Gineifa
El Shallûfa

Suez .

Remorqueur S take part in the convoy to mitigate any damage of propulsion. The ships are followed to a distance from approximately a Thousand sailor and the speed of transit is roughly of new nodes.

The pilot does not carry out all the crossing, it is raised in the passing of Ismaïlia.

Small the Bateau X with veil which wishes to forward, must also embark of the specialized local personnel.

See too

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