Losses mount from stuck vessel
ISMAILIA, EGYPT — Dredgers, tugboats and even a backhoe failed to free a giant cargo ship wedged in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Thursday as the number of stacked-up vessels unable to pass through the vital waterway climbed to 150 and losses to global shipping mounted.
The skyscraper-sized Ever Given, carrying cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground Tuesday in the narrow, manmade canal dividing continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula. Even with the aid of high tides, authorities have been unable to push the Panama-flagged container vessel aside, and they are looking for new ideas to free it.
In a sign of the turmoil the blockage has caused, the ship’s Japanese owner even offered a written apology.
As efforts to free it continue,
Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei (center), head of the Suez Canal Authority, visits with team investigating the vessel wedged across the canal. It has imperiled global shipping as ships idle at the crucial waterway.
an Egyptian canal authority officialsaidtheyhopedtoavoid offloading the vessel’s containers as it would take days to do so and extend the closure.
So far, dredgers have tried to clear silt around the massive ship. Tug boats nudged the vessel alongside it, trying to gain momentum. At
least one backhoe dug into the canal’s sandy banks, suggesting the bow of the ship had plowed into it.
Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, the head of the canal authority, said a Dutch firm specialized in salvaging, warned removing the vessel could take “days to weeks.”