All ships ” waiting “ since the grounding of theEver-Given, a huge container ship that got stuck across the Suez Canal on March 23, has left the waterway, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) announced on Saturday April 3. The sixty-one vessels that were still stranded crossed the channel on Saturday, SCA said in a statement. In total, 422 ships, loaded with 26 million tonnes of goods, were forced to stop for six days.
Flying the Panamanian flag and operated by Taiwanese shipowner Evergreen Marine Corporation, the ship – as long as four football fields – was refloated on March 29. TheEver-Given was towed to the large Amer Lake in the middle of the Suez Canal.
Open investigation
Unprecedented in its scale, the incident brought traffic to a complete halt on this crucial sea route, one of the busiest waterways in the world. Connecting Asia and Europe, it represents more than 10% of international trade and nearly 19,000 ships used it in 2020, according to the SCA, an average of 51.5 ships per day.
The SCA has opened an investigation into the causes of the blockage, the conclusions of which should be made public in the coming days, its chairman, Osama Rabie, told Egyptian private channel MBC Masr on Friday evening.