DUBAI, UAE – A skyscraper-sized container ship has become stranded across Egypt’s Suez Canal and blocked all traffic on the vital waterway, authorities said on Wednesday, threatening to disrupt a system. world navigation already strained by the coronavirus pandemic.
The MV Ever given, a Panama-flagged ship carrying goods between Asia and Europe, ran aground on the narrow man-made canal that divides mainland Africa from the Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday. The images showed the bow of the ship touching the east wall, while its stern appeared to be lodged against the west wall, an extraordinary fact that experts said they had never heard of before the canal’s 150-year history.
Tugboats struggled on Wednesday to try to clear the obstruction as ships waiting to enter the waterway began lining up in the Mediterranean and Red Sea. But it was not clear when the route would be reopened, through which it is around 10% of world trade and which is particularly crucial for oil transport. An official warned that it could take at least two days. Meanwhile, there was concern that slow-moving ships could become targets of attacks.
“The Suez Canal will spare no effort to ensure the restoration of navigation and serve the world trade movement,” promised Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which manages the Ever done program, said all 20 crew members were safe and there had been no “reports of injuries or pollution.”
It was not immediately known what caused Ever Give Ever to get stuck on Tuesday morning. GAC, a global transportation and logistics company, said the ship experienced a shutdown without elaborating on any details.
Bernhard Schulte, however, denied that the ship had lost power.
Evergreen Marine Corp., a major Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship, said in a statement that Ever Give had been overwhelmed by strong winds as it entered the canal from the Red Sea, but none of its containers were had sunk.
An Egyptian official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to report to journalists, similarly blamed a strong wind. Egyptian forecasts said strong winds and a sandstorm ravaged the area on Tuesday, with winds with gusts of up to 50 km / h.
However, it was not clear how only winds of this speed could have pushed a fully loaded ship weighing about 220,000 tons.
An Egyptian Channel Authority pilot usually boardes a ship to guide it by waterway, although the ship’s captain retains maximum authority over the ship, said Ranjith Raja, senior analyst at the data firm Refinitiv. The boat entered the canal about 45 minutes before it got stuck, moving at 12.8 knots (about 24 km / h) just before the crash, he said.
An image posted to Instagram by a user on another waiting cargo ship appeared to show the Ever given coined across the channel, as shown in the satellite images and data. A backhoe appeared to be digging in the sandbank under its arch to try to free it.
The Egyptian official said the tugs were hoping to re-float the ship and the operation would take at least two days. The ship ran aground about 6 miles north of the southern mouth of the canal, near the city of Suez, an area of the canal that is single-lane.
This could have a major effect on global shipping moving between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, warned Salvatore R. Mercogliano, a former merchant sailor and associate professor of history at Campbell University in North Carolina.
“Every day, 50 ships pass through this canal on average, so the closure of the canal means that there is no ship transiting north and south,” Mercogliano told the AP. “Every day the canal is closed … container vessels and tanks do not send food, fuel and manufactured goods to Europe and no goods are exported from Europe to the Far East.”
There were already about 30 ships waiting in Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake halfway down the canal, while about 40 were idling in the Mediterranean near Port Said and another 30 in Suez, on the Red Sea, according to the provider. Leth Agencies channel services. This included seven ships carrying about 5 million barrels of crude oil, Refinitiv said.
In addition to the economic implications, security experts warned that slow-moving ships in the Red Sea could be targeted after a series of attacks on shipping in the Middle East amid tensions between Iran and the Middle East. the US
“All ships should consider adopting a high surveillance stance if they are forced to remain static in the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden,” warned private marine intelligence firm Dryad Global.
The closure could also affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East. Brent international benchmark crude price jumped nearly 2.9% to $ 62.52 a barrel on Wednesday.
The Ever Give, built in 2018 with a length of about 400 meters and a width of 59 meters, is among the largest cargo ships in the world. It can carry about 20,000 containers at a time. He had previously been to ports in China before heading to Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal provides a crucial link for oil, natural gas and cargo. It also remains one of the top currency winners in Egypt. In 2015, the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi completed a major expansion of the canal, which allowed it to house the largest ships in the world. However, Ever Give ran aground south of this new portion of the canal.
Stranded Tuesday is the latest to hit sailors amid the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands have been trapped aboard ships due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, shipping demands have increased, which increases the pressure on tired sailors, Mercogliano said.
“It’s because of the dizzying pace of global shipping right now and shipping is on a very tight schedule,” he said. “Add to that that sailors have not been able to get on and off ships due to COVID restrictions.”
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Associated Press writers Taijing Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Isabel DeBre in Dubai contributed to this report.
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.