The Suez Canal, one of the most important trade routes in the world, faced a major disruption because of a certain vessel that got stuck in the waterway. Although the vessel has been re-floated now, the possibility of lingering disruptions cannot be ruled out. Here is what you need to know about the incident:
The Ever Given, a 1,300-foot, Japanese-owned container ship en route from China to Europe, became stuck in the artificial waterway until it was eventually freed, plummeting the world of maritime commerce into crisis. Operated by Evergreen Shipping, it is one of the world’s largest container ships and is nearly a quarter-mile long. Due to high winds and poor visibility, it ran aground on March 23, and the authorities scrambled to free it for days. The blockade affected more than 300 vessels in the waterway that also had to halt their journeys in lieu of the blockade.
Salvage teams and authorities worked tirelessly for about 6 days to try and free the vessel by dredging sand and removing rock from both ends of the ship and dredging underneath the hull and using a front-end loader to excavate the eastern embankment, where the bow was stuck. But the vessel’s enormous size and weight — 200,000 metric tons — had made efforts extremely difficult. and it wasn't until the arrival of high spring tide and help of tugboats on March 29 that the Ever Given re-floated.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE BLOCKADE:
The ramifications of the incident were huge, considering about 10 % of the commercial global maritime traffic is handled by the Suez canal. By the time the ship was freed on the 29th of March, about 367 vessels were waiting to pass through and nearly $10 Billion in trade was held up everyday due to the traffic jam.
Analysts already estimated that the delays could prove extremely expensive to the owners of ships waiting to pass through the canal. A few ship owners also decided to reroute to the Cape Of Good Hope, which added a considerable amount of time to their travel. The owner of Ever Given now faces millions of dollars in insurance claims and cost of services that freed the ship eventually.
The Egyptian government, that receives a revenue of nearly $6 Billion a year took interest in freeing the ship and since the Ever Given's re-floating, the Egyptian government has refused to release the ship until its owners pay compensation and an investigation is complete.
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