ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, March 3 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities celebrated on Sunday the completion of a project removing underground water from 2,000-year-old catacombs in the northern seaside province of Alexandria dating back to the Greco-Roman era.
"We have completed the project of permanently lowering the level of rising underground water in ancient Kom al-Shoqafa tombs that has been threatening the burial site for more than 100 years," Egypt's Minister of Antiquities Khaled al-Anany told a press conference at the site.
The drainage project was supported by a grant of 5.7 million U.S. dollars from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), he added.
The project started in November 2017 by the construction of six 42-meter-deep wells with pumps removing water through drainage pipelines.
"We will announce the completion of a similar project on March 25 that gets rid of underground water in Kom Ombo antiquities in Upper Egypt's Aswan Province," the minister told reporters at the press conference, noting that the project costs 9 million dollars.
Kom al-Shoqafa is the largest Greco-Roman burial site discovered in Egypt so far, and its catacombs are "extremely important" because of their historical significance, according to Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
"A few weeks ago, tourists here were unable to reach the third and last underground floors of the catacombs because of the rising water level, but they can easily reach them now after the project has been completed," Waziri told Xinhua outside the catacombs.
