CAIRO, Nov. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The Egyptian authorities have reopened the Suez Canal after a broken-down fuel tanker which blocked the waterway was refloated.

    The canal was reopened at 9:10 a.m. (0710 GMT), three days aftera Liberian-registered fuel tanker carrying some 84,000 tons of crude oil ran aground when passing through the canal, effectively bringing all traffic of the canal to a standstill.

    As a result, the Egyptian authorities decided to close the canalon Monday for the first time in nearly 30 years.

    Rescue workers made several attempts to move the 150,000-ton tanker on Saturday and Sunday, but all in vain.

    Then the workers began to pump fuel from the ship to a smaller Egyptian tanker on Monday in a bid to reduce its weight, which proved effective.

    It was still unclear why the giant ship had broken down, but an official from the Suez Canal Authority told Xinhua that investigators had ruled out an engine failure.

    He also said the helm of the tanker was destroyed during the incident and an Egyptian tug had pulled the tanker into a dock for repairs.

    The closure of the canal, which resulted in some 40 ships being stranded on the waterway, could prove costly for Egypt, for the world-renowned canal is one of Egypt's major revenue earners.

    Some 15,000 ships passed through the 190-km waterway last year, bringing Egypt 2.6 billion US dollars. Enditem¡¡