“Rescue crews desperately trying to free the container ship blocking the Suez Canal today said they have made a breakthrough and had managed to move the skyscraper-sized vessel by nearly 100ft,” the U.K.-based Daily Mail reported on Sunday, March 28, 2021.
The huge container ship, its bow stuck in sandy clay, is completely blocking the canal near its southern entrance.
Salvage efforts to date have included dredging operations, trying to pull the ship free with a fleet of heavy-duty tugboats, pumping out ballast water, and using high tides to try floating it free. Canal officials are discussing removing part of the cargo. So far, rescuers have freed the ship’s rudder and propeller (at high tide only), but the bow is still stuck.
Meanwhile, hundreds of ships are backed up, about a dozen of them carrying livestock at risk of dying if the canal isn’t opened soon.
For more details and photos, click here and here.
