Suez Canal remains blocked
SUEZ (AP) – A giant container ship remained stuck sideways in Egypt’s Suez Canal for a fifth day yesterday, as authorities prepared to make new attempts to free the vessel and reopen a crucial east-west waterway for global shipping.
The Ever Given, a Panama-flagged ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground last Tuesday in the narrow canal that runs between Africa and the Sinai Peninsula.
The massive vessel got stuck in a single-lane stretch of the canal, about six kilometers north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the technical manager of the Ever Given, said an attempt last Friday to free the ship failed.
The manager added that plans were in the works to pump water from interior spaces of the vessel, and two more tugs should arrive today to join others already trying to move the massive ship.
An official at the Suez Canal Authority said they planned to make at least two attempts yesterday to free the vessel when the high tide goes down. He added that the timing depends on the tide.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists.
Egyptian authorities have prohibited media access to the site. The canal authority said its head, Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, would hold a news conference yesterday in Suez, a few kilometers from the site of the vessel.
Shoei Kisen president Yukito Higaki told a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Imabari in western Japan that 10 tugboats were deployed and workers were dredging the banks and sea floor near the vessel’s bow to try to get it afloat again as the high tide starts to go out.
In a statement yesterday, Shoei Kisen said it was considering removing containers to lighten the vessel if refloating efforts fail, but that would be a difficult operation.
The White House said it has offered to help Egypt reopen the canal.
“We have equipment and capacity that most countries don’t have, and we’re seeing what we can do and what help we can be,” US President Joe Biden told reporters last Friday.