Egyptian workers have been able to refloat the Ever Given after six days stuck in the Suez Canal.
The stranded container ship blocking the crucial trade route was re-floated on Monday at around 5:42am (2:42pm AEDT) and is currently being secured, Inch Cape Shipping Services said in a post on Twitter.
The Suez Canal Authority had earlier said in a statement that tugging operations to free the ship had resumed.
A high tide failed to float the ship as expected on Sunday.
Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi had earlier ordered preparations to be made for the unloading of the ship’s cargo.
Lieutenant General Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, told Egyptian television that officials were preparing for the “third scenario” of unloading containers so it could be refloated, opening up one of the world’s busiest waterways. The canal has been blocked since Tuesday, leaving more than 300 ships waiting to pass through.
The high tide on Sunday failed to lift the Ever Given from the bank, even after its rudder was freed. Credit:AP
A scheduled towing operation had been postponed to 11pm local time (8am Monday AEDT) to make the most of “favourable tidal conditions”.
The MV Ever Given, a Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, got stuck Tuesday in a single-lane stretch of the canal. In the time since, authorities have been unable to unstick the vessel and traffic through the canal — valued at over $US9 billion ($11.8 billion) a day — has been halted, further disrupting a global shipping network already strained by the coronavirus pandemic.
Work to un-jam the Ever Given could take “days, even weeks”. Once it is freed, the backlog of other ships could take many days to clear.
The salvage effort has truly become an international operation led by an Egyptian, Dutch and German team with tugs now from Italy and the Netherlands, mirroring the global shipping industry and the Ever Given itself. The ship is owned by a Japanese company and operated by a Taiwanese firm. Its crew is Indian and it sails under a Panamanian flag.
More to come
Nine, Reuters, AP
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