Traffic resumes in Egypt’s Suez Canal; Stranded ship Ever Given refloated!
On Monday, shipping resumed after tugs refloated a giant container ship- Ever Given, which had been blocking the Suez Canal for nearly a week. According to Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chairman Osama Rabie, with the 400-metre-long Ever Given dislodged, as many as 113 ships were expected to transit the Suez Canal in both directions by early Tuesday morning.
A backlog of 422 ships could be cleared in three – three and a half days, he said. On March 23, the ship had become diagonally jammed across a southern section of the Suez Canal, which is known to be the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia, a Reuters report stated. Ever Given would be inspected for seaworthiness in the Great Bitter Lake, which separates two sections of the Suez Canal, according to Evergreen Line, which is leasing the ship.
After an initial inspection, the ship was ready for limited navigation and not a single container was damaged, Rabie said. But a second investigation will be more precise and it will show if it was affected, he further stated.
A canal source was quoted in the report saying that rescue workers from the SCA working with a team from Dutch company Smit Salvage refloated the ship partially and straightened it in the canal at dawn on Monday. It shifted briefly back across the canal after several hours, before being maneuvered free by tugs as the tide changed.
To refloat the 224,000-tonne container ship, sand of around 30,000 cubic metres had been dredged and to pull the ship free, a total of 11 tugs, as well as two powerful sea tugs, were utilized.
