Local authorities said the Ever Given was 80% corrected and planned to continue tugging efforts
A giant container ship that has blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week has been refloated, raising hopes that the international waterway will soon be clear.
The 400-metre long Ever Given had been dislodged from the banks of the Suez canal on Monday morning, marine services company Inchcape said in a tweet.
“The MV Ever Given was successfully re-floated at 04:30 lt 29/03/2021,” said Inchcape.
“She is being secured at the moment.”
MSNBC (@MSNBC) Tweeted:
Crews manage to move cargo ship stuck in Suez Canal 30 yards. The ship has been blocking Egypt’s Suez Canal for 6 days
The Associated Press (@AP) Tweeted:
BREAKING: A canal services firm says salvage teams have “partially refloated” the colossal container ship that remains wedged across the Suez Canal, without providing further details about when the vessel would be wedged free.
Local authorities added that the vessel was 80% clear and that the next step would be to continue tugging efforts to free the vessel and direct it to a waiting area.
The Ever Given container ship, which is the size of four football fields, has blocked the Suez Canal for the past six days, crippling international trade and causing losses worth millions of dollars.
Egyptian witnesses from Suez city tweeted early this morning;
The blockage has stopped traffic coming from both directions and forced companies to consider taking a more expensive route that diverts vessels past South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
Omar Rabie, who heads the Suez Canal Authority said that the blockage had held up more than 320 ships in either side of the canal
He added that waterway’s closure had meant the Egyptians had lost at least $12-14 m in revenue.
Read More; $10 billion in goods stuck in Suez Canal traffic jam
Lloyds List, a shipping data and news company, said it had also seen a “surge” in vessels opting to go around Africa instead of waiting for the canal to be cleared.
The 200,000-tonne MV Ever Given veered off course in the Suez Canal on Wednesday, an incident officials blamed on high wind speeds and sandstorms.
But Rabie on Saturday acknowledged that “technical or human errors” led to the Panama-registered super container ship’s grounding.
