Word: ismailia
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...bridge, the October Six slipped her lines, gathered speed and at ten knots moved slowly southward into the Suez Canal; symbolic floating gates decorated with pharaonic designs parted to let her through. Another destroyer and three vessels filled with invited guests fell in line for a voyage to Ismailia, 48 miles away. Thus did jubilant Egyptians last week begin a two-day celebration of the reopening of their canal, eight years after it was blocked shut by ships scuttled at the outbreak of the Six-Day War (see box page...
...dramatic as the clearing of the canal has been the restoration of the main cities that line it. Since the 1967 war, Port Said, Ismailia and Suez had been part of the Arab-Israeli battleground, and most residents had fled for safety to such cities as Cairo and Alexandria. After the Israeli pullback from Suez last March, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat gave priority to a $7.2 billion renovation plan for the Canal Zone -in part to create a visible symbol of Egypt's desire for peace...
Since then, some 275,000 people have returned to the canal's northern terminus at Port Said and 280,000 to Ismailia. Suez, which was 80% destroyed during the October war, will not be ready for full repatriation of its 264,000 residents for another year. Even so, the population has swelled from 8,000 to more than 100,000 since June...
...worse before they get better. In the past 30 years, the population has soared from 18 million to 36 million. About a fifth of the country's population are now clustered in and around Cairo; many newcomers are refugees from such once-prosperous cities as Port Said and Ismailia whose homes were ruined after the Six-Day War. Cairo is so overcrowded that it is approaching what Egyptian officials call "Calcutta-ization." At least 60% of its residents have no electricity, water and sewage. A badly managed distribution system has caused long queues and high prices for staple foods...
...Egypt is Osman Ahmed Osman, 57, the principal contractor on the Aswan High Dam, who after the war was named Minister of Housing and Reconstruction by Sadat. Osman's first assignment is a $6 billion reconstruction of the Canal Zone, including the cities of Suez, Port Said, Ismailia and reclamation of land on both sides of the canal. Once that is completed, Osman wants to build a system of concrete culverts beneath the Suez Canal (which is now being cleared by teams of Egyptian, U.S. and British divers) that will carry water from the Nile to irrigate the Sinai...