Suez Canal: freighter is detached and ship circulation is resumed
Tugs honked to commemorate stripping
After almost a week of a huge stripping operation, the Ever Given freighter finally unlocked circulation on the Suez Canal, on Monday (3/29).
Channel officials told Reuters, the traffic through Suez - which makes the shortest route between Asia and Europe is one of the busiest trade routes in the world - could then begin to resume. On Monday there were at least 369 vessels in the queue, waiting to cross the channel, even after several companies had redirected part of their ships to other routes.
The Ever Given stripping operation (which is similar in length to the height of the American Empire State building) featured several working days for several tugs.
Peter Berdowski, CEO of the Dutch rescue company Boskalis, said that Ever Given floated again at 13:05 GMT (10:05 GMT), "thus leaving the Suez Canal passage free again."
As soon as the channel was cleared, the tugs honked their horns in celebration.
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi thanked the Egyptians for their efforts to "end the crisis" on the canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
BBC business correspondent Theo Leggett recalls, however, that the disruption in global trade will not end this Monday, given the huge line of ships waiting to cross Suez. It is believed that the normalization of traffic will still take several days, with repercussions on prices and the availability of products around the world.
Ever Given, which weighs 200,000 tonnes, ran aground last Tuesday, amid strong winds and a sandstorm that hindered visibility.
To rescue him, the Boskalis company employed a team of experts, which started by first releasing the stern and then the bow. It was necessary to remove more than 230 thousand cubic meters of sand to unpick it.
On Sunday, canal officials had prepared to remove the nearly 18,000 containers on board the vessel, in order to reduce its weight. Containers carry products of all kinds, and the insurance value of the cargo is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ever Given took off and cleared the passage through Suez, but normalization of traffic should take days
Ever Given was taken to an off-channel location for investigations and inspections of the episode.
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