Toiling under a hot summer sun, about 10,000 workers and two army battalions have dug eight million cubic metres of earth in the Egyptian desert since 10 August, when excavation work began on a new Suez Canal lane to run alongside part of the historic 163-kilometre (101-mile) waterway.
The $4bn project, scheduled for completion in between one and three years, would allow two-way traffic in the canal, cutting the maximum waiting time of ships by about eight hours and allowing it to double the number of vessels it can handle daily to 97.
But
