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Blockade on one of the most important waterways in the world: a huge container ship ran aground and is now trapped in the Suez Canal. The images show the precarious situation of the ship.
A large container ship got stuck in the Egyptian Suez Canal and blocked traffic on the waterway. The “Ever Given” stalled on Tuesday while passing after a power outage, the port agency GAC announced on its website. Traffic on the important transportation route had stopped. First, the BBC news site reported about it.
Therefore, another 15 ships are stuck at the anchorages behind the 200,000-ton freighter en route to the north, and a convoy traveling south has also stopped. Vessel tracking data on the “Refinitiv Eikon” page showed seven tugs attempting to pull the 400 meter long and 59 meter wide freighter.
The “Ever Given” freighter is trapped in the Suez Canal: the Internet platform Vesselfinder shows several tugs alongside the large container ship. (Source: Screenshot / Vesselfinder.com)
The Panama-registered container ship was heading from China to the Dutch port city of Rotterdam and passing through the canal heading north en route to the Mediterranean Sea when it got stuck. The ship, built in 2018, is operated by the Evergreen Marine shipping company.
A photo on Instagram, said to have been taken by someone aboard another cargo ship, apparently shows the ship stuck with a bulldozer clearing the ground along the shoreline.
The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and provides the shortest maritime connection between Asia and Europe. The waterway crosses the Suez Isthmus in Egypt. The canal is approximately 193 kilometers long and includes three natural lakes.
According to the Suez Canal Authority SCA, nearly 19,000 ships, or an average of 51.5 ships per day, took the waterway as a shortcut in 2020, thus sparing the need to circumnavigate Africa. About twelve percent of the volume of world trade passes through the canal, which is an important source of income for Egypt.
