New Loop To Be Built For The Suez Canal; Seven And A Half Miles Long

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 November 1949, Page 5

New Loop To Be Built For The Suez Canal; Seven And A Half Miles Long

LONDON, Nov. 3 (Roc. 6 pm).— i Work is to start shortly on the build- i ing of a new seven and a-half mile 1 , loop for the Suez Canal. It will cut 1 across the Sinai Desert and provide two-way traffic in the canal by ! eliminating the need for north or j south-bound ships to tie up to allow others to pass. The loop is due to be completed , in 15 months at an estimated cost of 1 £2,100,000. Modern equipment will ' make it possible for the present . builders to achieve is one day work i which took De Lesseps and his 80,- i 000 men one month to complete. Five I

French engineers, 60 Dutch tech- , nicians and 700 Egyptian workers, to- 1 get her with a flotilla of ships, tugs, floating docks, dredgers and power- | ful modern machinery from Ger- I many, Holland, France and the United States are assembling at the!' Suez Canal headquarters. On the day fixed for the beginning of operations, which will entail removal of some 48,000,000 tons of soil, I five giant 240-ton excavators, capable of clearing 24,000 tons of soil a day. I eight 1500-horsepowcr draglines, and I 10 bulldozers and scrapers will go into action. The excavators, cutting

across the desert, will shift 24,610,000 tons of sand which will be removed by conveyor belts to the eastern bank. The oil and calciferous rock below will be removed by bucket dredgers and suction dredgers, while sand suckers will deepen a channel below the water. Five French firms secured the contract on international tenders in August this year. For carrying out this project they combined into one company under the name of Association des Travaux, Ismailia and Port Said.—Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent.