DUBAI, UAE – A massive cargo ship has turned sideways into Egypt’s Suez Canal, blocking traffic on a crucial East-West waterway for global shipping, according to satellite data accessed Wednesday.
Narrow waterway traffic dividing mainland Africa from the Sinai Peninsula stopped on Tuesday after MV Ever Date, a Panama-flagged container ship with an owner listed in Japan, was stranded.
It wasn’t clear as soon as he made Ever Date turn sideways into the canal. GAC, a global shipping and logistics company, described Ever Data as “suffering from an interruption while transiting in a northerly direction”, without elaborating. Others blamed the strong winds for turning the ship over.
Ever’s bow touched the east wall of the canal, while its stern appeared to be perched on its west wall, according to satellite data from MarineTraffic.com. Several tugs surrounded the ship, probably trying to push it in the right way, the data show.
An image posted on Instagram by a user on another waiting cargo ship appeared to show Ever Haded embedded across the canal.
The canal authorities could not be contacted immediately early Wednesday. The ship appeared to be stranded about 6 miles north of the southern mouth of the canal near the city of Suez.
Cargo and oil tankers appeared to line up at the southern end of the Suez Canal, waiting to cross the waterway into the Mediterranean, according to MarineTraffic.
A United Nations database listed Ever Give as owned by Shoei Kisen KK, a naval leasing firm based in Imabari, Japan. The company could not be contacted immediately for comments on Wednesday. The ship had listed its destination as Rotterdam in the Netherlands before being stranded in the canal.
Evergreen Marine Corp., a major Taiwan-based shipping company, has also listed Ever Give among the ships in its fleet, and the ship bears its color scheme and logo.
Evergreen could not be reached immediately for comment, although Taiwan’s Central News Agency quoted unidentified company sources as saying the ship was overwhelmed by strong winds as it entered the Suez Canal in the Red Sea, but none of its containers sank. .
Ever Date, built in 2018, with a length of almost 400 meters and a width of 59 meters, is one of the largest cargo ships in the world.
Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal provides a crucial link for the transportation of oil, natural gas and goods from east to west. About 10% of world trade is in waterways and remains one of the biggest currency winners in Egypt. In 2015, the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi completed a major extension of the canal, allowing it to house the largest ships in the world.
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Associated Press writer Taijing Wu of Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to the report.
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.