Hello, Friends! Just think, one ship got stuck in one canal and the whole world was affected tremendously. From global supply chains to oil prices its effects have been felt and the loss amounted to billions of dollars.
How can it be possible because of just one ship? And what is the solution to it? Let’s find out in today’s video. You’ve read about the Suez Canal and Panama Canal in your school textbooks. but you will be surprised to know that even in today’s globalised world, their importance hasn’t faded instead it has kept on increasing.
These play a very important role in today’s globalised world. In fact, according to some estimates, 12% of global trade happens through the Suez Canal. Suez Canal is a man made canal in Egypt, that lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. It connects Europe with Asia.
By seeing the world map you might think it to be a very small canal of 10-20 km. but in reality, it is a very long canal;193 kilometres long. It is completely man-made. Can imagine how difficult it must’ve been? It took more than 10 years to be built and it was opened in 1869. More than 1.5 million workers worked on it and it cost 100 million dollars at that time.
Today it would’ve cost billions of dollars if you account for inflation. You might wonder, friends, that today when aeroplanes are so common, who uses ships? But if you see the data you’ll find that the cargo from the Suez Canal, the amount of cargo has been continually increasing over the last 10-20 years. The importance of the Suez Canal is in its location. The ships from India, China, and South East Asia that go to Europe and those from Europe to Asia, for them using the Suez Canal can save a lot of money and time.
The alternative route of travelling between Asia and Europe is circumnavigating around South Africa through the Cape of Good Hope. It takes two weeks longer to use that route. In today’s world if you want to receive a delivery of something, a delay of two weeks is very significant. Strategically, the Suez Canal is so important that in 1956, when the Egypt Government nationalised it, then Israel, Britain and France almost went on a war against Egypt because of it. This is also called The Suez Crisis.
Today obviously, the whole canal is under the control of the Egypt Government and they get a lot of economic benefit from this. In terms of numbers literally, $5.61 billion is earned by the Egyptian government from the toll of the Suez Canal in just one year in 2020. The ship stuck in the Suez Canal now which has blocked the canal, is quite unique in and of itself. Its name is Evergiven and is longer than 400 metres. For comparison, do you remember Titanic? There was a film on Titanic as well;it was the biggest ship of that era. The total length of Titanic was 269 metres. And this ship is 400 metres long.
Almost twice as long as Titanic. It is longer than the height of Eiffel Tower. The width of the Suez Canal is 300 metres. So it’s not surprising that the photos you’re seeing online of the ship standing still at an angle in the canal has blocked the whole canal. Because its length is more than the width of the Suez Canal. The maximum length of a ship permitted in the Suez Canal is 400 meters only. It is such a huge ship that more than 20,000 cargo containers are loaded on it. And each container is around 20 metres long. Just imagine if so many containers were travelling on road, each container would have required one truck to carry it, and if such trucks were standing in a line; the line of these trucks would have been longer than 273 kilometres.
Now you can imagine, how much cargo is travelling on this one ship. Another interesting thing is that, in today’s globalised world, this ship is also very globalised. It is a Japanese owned ship; Operated by a Taiwanese company named Evergreen Marine; and the 25 crew members of this ship are all Indians. The ‘Evergreen’ written on the side of the ship is actually the name of the Taiwanese company and the name of the ship is Evergiven.
The reason given behind the ship getting stuck are poor visibility, high winds and a sand storm. It means that very high winds were blowing and the control of the ship was lost and all the containers stacked on top of each other, acted like a sail in the high winds pushing the ship towards one side and the ship struck the side of the canal and got trapped in the soil. The eastern corner of the canal is where the front of the ship is stuck. Because the soil on the bank of the canal is very soft, the front of the ship is stuck into the soil.
Because of this one incident, the whole Suez Canal is blocked and the ships following it are in trouble too. They had to decide if they wanted to wait it out for the Evergiven to be removed and the route to be cleared. How long will it take? It has been already four days since got stuck. Or should they come out and take the route circumnavigating South Africa? Which will delay them for 2 weeks. This is a very tough situation for them. Will the two weeks be worth it? Or will the ship be freed before then and the route will be cleared? Another danger while taking the route from the Suez Canal to South Africa is of the Somali Pirates.
That route will take the ships near Somalia. Somali Pirates are often lurking there. Second, because so many global trades happen through the Suez Canal, it is estimated that the amount of goods that is blocked because of the Suez Canal being blocked, they are worth $400 million per hour or $9.7 billion per day. The global supply chains which were already struggling because of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns, are now facing another problem. Because of this, crude oil prices have also been increasing. Crude oil is one of the basic commodities that is transported by ships. If some newspapers are to be believed, in some places, toilet paper shortages are also possible.
So what is the solution to getting this ship out of there? There are two main solutions. The first is JCB’s digging. Just kidding! The first solution is to dig the soil so that the ship is freed and for this many tools are being used. This excavating machine is technically called the backhoe. Whose photos have been quite viral on social media people also made several memes on it. It will try to dig at the front to reduce the soil there so that water can fill up. Additionally, dredger ships have also been used for digging in the water.
To dig the seabed and deepen it so that the depth of water can be increased. Its purpose is to get enough water under the ship to make enable it to float again. Tug boats are also being used to pull the ship in the correct direction. But this ship is so huge and heavy that the tug boats cannot work alone. Finally, nature’s help is also being awaited. With high tide, the water level in the canal would rise by 18 inches. And it will be easier for the ship to float.
But friends, these are only the first solution. If all of these fail, then the second solution will be to offload the cargo on the ship with the help of a crane. It will be difficult to bring in such a long crane as well. If the crane cannot come then helicopters will be used to take the cargo off the ship. So that the weight of the ship reduces. Once the ship is lighter it will be able to float better. and these steps will be repeated If the first solution fails, it might take weeks to implement the second solution.
But it is hoped that the first solution will work soon. So this is the interesting story of the ship stuck in the Suez Canal, friends. It will be worth seeing what happens now. If you like this article, share it with friends. If you like my work you can support me on patreon.com/sanjog or by becoming a member on blog by clicking on the Join button. So that I can continue making such educational articles for you in the future. Let’s meet in the next article. Thank you very much.
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