Suez Canal Temporarily Suspends Traffic

On Thursday, the Suez Canal has temporarily suspended traffic, as eight boats are continuing efforts to re-float a giant container ship, which was stranded in the southern part of the canal, two days ago.

After the container ship stranded due to weather conditions earlier Tuesday, Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority (SCA) decided to pert the ship transit system to two directions in the old canal.

An ultra-large containership is aground and blocking ship traffic in the Suez Canal.

AIS data shows the MV Ever Given is stuck sideways within the canal, preventing ships from passing in either direction. Several tugs have been on the scene for several hours working to dislodge the ship.

Shipping agent GAC reports that the grounding occurred at 7:40 a.m. local time on Tuesday (March 23) at kilometer 151 after the vessel suffered a blackout while transiting.

It seems the Ever Given had just begun its transit of the waterway as part of a northbound convoy when the incident occurred.

“The 199,489 GT ship was fifth in the northbound convoy.

None of the vessels before it were affected, but the 15 behind it were detained at anchorages waiting for the Canal to be cleared.

The southbound convoy was also blocked,” GAC reported.

An AIS screengrab from MarineTraffic.com shows Ever Given’s position within the Suez Canal.

At 400-meters in length and over 20,000 TEU capacity, the MV Ever Given is among the largest of so-called “mega-ships”, aka ultra-large container vessels (ULCVs), currently in operation.