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Tugboats and excavators are working to free a giant container ship trapped in the Suez Canal after it veered off course in a sandstorm, authorities said.
The incident has created huge obstacles on one of the busiest trade routes in the world.
Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority said it was doing everything possible to re-float the MV Ever Given run by Taiwan but under the Panamanian flag.
The 400-meter-long and 59-meter-wide vessel is housed at an angle across the canal.
Historic sections of the canal have been reopened in an attempt to ease the bottleneck of jammed maritime traffic.
“The container accidentally ran aground after an alleged gust of wind hit it,” said ship operator Evergreen Marine Corp.
The SCA said the ship was caught in a sandstorm, a common occurrence in Egypt’s Sinai desert at this time of year, which turns off the light and limits the captain’s ability to see.
It was “mainly due to the lack of visibility due to weather conditions when the winds reached 40 knots, which affected the control” of the ship, the SCA said in a statement.
MarineTraffic shipping monitors recorded that the vessel had been in the same position since at least yesterday afternoon.
SCA President Admiral Osama Rabie said in a statement that “rescue units and tugs are continuing their efforts” to release the MV Ever Given.
Bloomberg reported that it had caused the accumulation of more than 100 ships seeking to transit through the canal.
“There was a grounding incident,” said Alok Roy, BSM Hong Kong fleet manager, the Ever Given ship manager.
Photographs released by the SCA also showed excavators on land excavating dirt from the canal bank, with the earthmoving equipment dwarfed by the giant hull towering above.
The canal, which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, was opened for navigation in 1869 and expanded in 2015 to accommodate larger ships.
MarineTraffic showed a map with large groups of vessels circling at both ends of the canal, in the Mediterranean off Port Said and north of the Red Sea.
On the canal itself, the map showed at least six tugs near the jammed Ever Given.
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Instagram user Julianne Cona posted a photo of the Maersk Denver’s ship ashore, which was forced to wait behind the Ever Given.
“The ship in front of us ran aground while crossing the canal and is now stuck on its side,” he wrote.
“Looks like we could be here for a while.”
Shipping website Vessel Finder said the ship was heading to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and it was unclear why it had stopped moving.
“Currently the tugs are trying to float the ship,” said Leth Agencies, which provides crossing services to customers using the canal.
The Suez Canal is one of the most important trade routes in the world, providing the passage for 10 percent of all international maritime trade.
Travel between the Gulf ports and London, for example, is roughly halved via Suez, compared to the alternative route through the southern tip of Africa.
Almost 19,000 ships passed through it last year with more than 1 billion tons of cargo, according to the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).
It has been a boon for Egypt’s struggling economy in recent years, as the country made $ 5.61 billion in revenue from the canal in 2020.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced plans in 2015 for an expansion designed to reduce wait times and double the number of ships using the canal daily by 2023.
In February, Sisi ordered his cabinet to adopt a “flexible marketing policy” for the channel in order to cope with the economic recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Container ships account for more than half of the canal’s total traffic, and some of them are among the largest in the world, reaching a capacity of up to 23,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit).
Most of the cargo that travels from the Gulf to Western Europe is oil.
In the opposite direction, it is mainly manufactured goods and cereals from Europe and North America heading to the Far East and Asia.
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