Giant Container Ship Underway After Days Of Blocking Suez Canal
A 1,300-foot, 220,000-ton container ship that has been blocking traffic in the Suez Canal for nearly a week is finally free and once again underway, onboard tracking sites and livestreamed video from the scene indicate.
The Ever Given was seen slowly making its way in the canal on Monday afternoon local time. Marinetraffic.com showed the vessel pointed north for the first time since last Tuesday, when in high winds and low visibility, it became cross-ways in the canal and ran aground, shutting down all ship traffic in the vital waterway.
Earlier, the Suez Canal Authority announced that the vessel had been partially refloated and that a team of tug boats were waiting for high tide in hopes of completely freeing the stricken vessel.
Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, announced early Monday that the stern of the Ever Given container ship had been moved 102 meters from shore; it had been only a few meters from land.
Rabie said shipping traffic would not resume until the Ever Given was completely freed. At giant Ever Given, which has a beam of 200 feet, is among the largest container ships currently in operation.
Freeing the ship from its spot on the Suez Canal will allow billions of dollars worth of cargo to resume transits and obviate the need for vessels to take a long and expensive detour around the tip of Africa to reach ports in Asia.
A prolonged delay could have increased the cost of shipping, complicated manufacturing and ultimately driven up prices, logistics experts previously told NPR. [Copyright 2021 NPR]
