Taiwanese transport company Evergreen Marine, which operates the vessel, reportedly said that the ship was suspected of being hit by a sudden strong wind, causing the hull to deviate and accidentally hit the bottom and run aground.
According to Vessel Finder, the 2,20,000 tonne ship was bound for the port city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands from China before it ran aground and was stuck sideways across the waterway on Tuesday at around 11 AM IST.
According to AFP, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said it was working to refloat the giant ship, using rescue and tug units. To ease the marine traffic caused by the incident, the authorities also reopened an older section of the canal.
The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and provides the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe. About 10 percent of global trade passes through the Suez Canal and under normal circumstances, around 50 ships pass through the 190 Km long canal.
As per the ABC report, "Tugboats strained Wednesday to try to nudge the obstruction out of the way as ships hoping to enter the waterway began lining up in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. But it remained unclear when the route, through which around 10% of world trade flows and which is particularly crucial for the transport of oil, would reopen."
WATCH: A giant container ship is blocking the Suez Canal, potentially choking one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes for days https://t.co/6RAylYpb6h pic.twitter.com/Jup9ahHOoB
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) March 24, 2021
More about the Ever Given, then it is a Panama-flagged ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground Tuesday in the narrow, man-made canal dividing continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula. The viral pictures showed the ship's bow was touching the eastern wall, while its stern looked lodged against the western wall.
Well, Suez Canal is one of Egypt's top foreign currency earners but now, Ever Given ran aground south of that new portion of the canal. Already, thousands of aboard vessels are stuck due to the pandemic and this event has added pressure on tired sailors.
The incident began on Tuesday when strong winds blasted through the region and kicked up sands along the banks of the 120-mile-long canal, which connects the Mediterranean in the north with the Red Sea in the south. The waterway is narrow -- less than 675 feet wide (205 meters) in some places -- and can be difficult to navigate when there's poor visibility.
But Ever Given stayed its course through the canal, on its way to Rotterdam from China. As gusts that reached as high as 46 miles an hour swept up dust around it, the crew lost control of ship and it careened sideways into a sandy embankment, blocking nearly the entirety of the channel. It's still in the same position as when it ran aground, according to Inchcape.
Two canal pilots were onboard when the ship went aground at about 5:40 a.m. The ship's last known speed was 13.5 knots at about 5:30 a.m.
At the heart of all of this is the ship's massive scale.
Container vessels have nearly doubled in size in the past decade as global trade expanded, making the job of moving such ships much harder when they get stuck.
Even while key routes -- including the Suez Canal -- have been widened and deepened over the years to accommodate the mega-sized vessels, the work to dig them out after they get stuck takes enormous power.
