Despite early hopes by Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority that the vital cargo lane could be cleared quickly, a giant container vessel appears to be firmly lodged in place.
Cairo — Marine traffic through the on Thursday for the third consecutive day, with dozens of ships stuck at both the north and south entrances to the shortest route between Asia and Africa. One of the world’s largest cargo vessels turned sideways and got stuck across the narrow canal on Tuesday, and one of the teams in charge of dislodging the vessel has said it could take weeks to get freight moving again. Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority (SCA) announced that navigation through the canal was “temporarily suspended” until the hulking Panamanian-flagged container vessel MV Ever Given can be re-floated. On Wednesday the SCA allowed 13 ships to enter the canal’s northern end, from the Mediterranean, hoping the Ever Given would be un-stuck quickly and the other cargo vessels would be able to continue on their journeys. But those ships only made it as far as a lake in the middle of the canal, and they may be going nowhere fast. Egypt is using eight large tugboats and excavation equipment on the banks of the canal, but so far all efforts to refloat the nearly-quarter-of-a-mile-long,247,000-ton container ship have failed.
