Busted: Egypt’s ‘Panama Canal’ blunder goes viral

Egyptians on social media have derided a stamp that was supposed to depict the nation’s famous Suez Canal but instead showed the Panama Canal – situated over 11,500 km away.

The new series of stamps had been commissioned to mark a new $8.4bn Suez Canal project which will run alongside the existing 145-year-old historic waterway.

suez

“Egypt issues stamps of ‘new Suez Canal,’ but steals an image of the Panama Canal instead. Major fail,” wrote one Twitter user.

Another wrote: “even with the new Suez Canal, they did not produce it with conscience.”

An official source acknowledged the mistake and said the error will be corrected, adding that a new, accurate stamp would be released next Tuesday, local daily Youm7 reported.

Infographic: Suez canal expansion

The former Suez Canal was once one of the gateways to the British Empire in India, but later served as the catalyst for the UK’s imperial decline after a failed attempt to retake it from President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s forces in 1956.