After nearly a week, one of the world’s largest container ships, the Ever Given, has finally been freed after blocking a vital trade route consisting of over 12% of shipping trade in the Suez Canal.
On March 23, the ship’s owners reported that a sandstorm’s high winds had blown the Ever Given sideways while it was passing through the southern entrance’s single-lane section on its voyage from Malaysia to the Netherlands.
The vessel is as long as the Empire State Building is tall and weighs over 200,000 tons, carrying over 20,000 cargo containers.
Perfectly lodged between both sides of the canal and restricting any international trade passage for hundreds of other boats, the ship was halting billions of dollars in global-trade cargo each day.
“Every day, about seven or eight billion dollars worth of cargo travels through the canal,” explained Guy Platten, the Secretary General of the International Chamber of Shipping, “so we’ve had a week where that’s essentially all stopped.”
With the aid of ten tugboats and the spring high tide, on Monday, March 23, the cargo ship was freed. The Suez Canal was filled with the sounds of tugboat horns blaring in celebration.
The Ever Given has been towed to Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake, where it will undergo safety checks and a thorough inspection. Egyptian officials speculate the canal’s boat transit should be regulated within three days.
