Uri Geller vs the Suez Canal
Veteran cutlery-botherer steps in to dislodge giant container ship from canal
A huge container ship blocked the Suez Canal for one week, initially causing a 100-boat tailback, but eventually leaving 300 ships stuck on either side. The Taiwan-owned, Panama-registered MV Ever Given had lost power around four miles (6.5km) into the 120-mile (193km) canal as it was heading north, bound for Rotterdam as part of a 20-ship convoy. About 12 per cent of global trade passes through the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red
Sea and provides the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe. An alternative route, around the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa, can take two weeks longer. Some shipping companies had to re-route vessels around East Africa, raising fears over pirate attacks. The Ever Given blockage was holding up an estimated $9.6bn (£7bn) of goods each day, equivalent to $400m (£290m) an hour. The Suez Canal Authority’s (SCA) chairman, General Osama Rabie, estimated that Egypt had lost up to $14m (£10m) revenue for each day the canal was closed.
Some social media commentators pointed to the Egyptian government’s plan to relocate 22 mummies (including those of King Ramses II and Queen Ahmose-Nefertari) from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat on 3 April (see p11). This, they suggested, had somehow caused a series of disasters in Egypt. As well as the canal blockage, a fatal train accident, the collapse of a 10-storey building and several fires across the country were blamed on the Pharaohs’ wrath.
The Ever Given had drifted across the entire width of the canal before becoming jammed on 23 March. The vessel is one of the world’s largest at 1,312ft (400m) long and 175ft (53m) wide, and weighs almost 200,000 tons. Initial attempts to shift the ship by means of 14 tugboats trying to nudge it out of the way at high tide failed; meanwhile, dredgers continued to remove thousands of tons of sand and clay from the canal bank where the vessel’s bow was lodged. Alternative solutions were considered, including lightening the stranded ship’s load to render it easier to move. This would have involved transferring some containers to another vessel or to the canal bank, but would have required specialist equipment and could have taken weeks.
Never one to miss out on an opportunity to help at a time of crisis (see his assistance on behalf of the England football team in 1996, when he caused Scotland to miss a crucial penalty; FT159:7), Uri Geller urged Daily Star readers to focus their minds at 11.11am and 11.11pm on 27 March. The combined efforts of the tabloid newspaper’s readers could, Geller claimed, cause the ship to bend, much like one of the many pieces of cutlery he had disfigured in his 1970s heyday. “We can do this with mind power energy,” said the veteran spoonbender. “It is possible to move the ship. Let’s go for this... I believe in your powers.”
Strangely, the huge vessel was dislodged two days later on 29 March. Rescue workers from the SCA, working with a team from Dutch firm Smit Salvage, partially refloated the Ever Given, straightening it out in the canal. After several hours it shifted briefly back across the canal, but was manoeuvred free by tugboats as the tide changed. D.Mail, 24 Mar; D.Star, 26 Mar; BBC News, 28 Mar; D.Mail, 29 Mar; Guardian, 30 Mar 2021.