The Sun
THE giant container that is blocking the Suez Canal has finally been freed – but it will take days before the traffic jam is cleared.
Officials said that rescuers have successfully freed the front end of the monster cargo boat after moving the rear end hours earlier, canal services firm Leth Agencies said.
The 400m-long Ever Given became wedged in the shipping lane due to extreme weather conditions last Tuesday.
The ship is now being towed to the middle of the waterway and toward the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south end of the canal.
Yet, it remains unclear when the major trading route will reopen again for the hundreds of others boats waiting to pass through.
The 400m-long Ever Given became wedged in the shipping lane due to extreme weather conditions last Tuesday holding up £6.5billion a day in global trade.
Apart from goods, some 130,000 head of livestock on 11 ships sent from Romania have also been held up as a result of Ever Given’s stranding.
“My greatest fear is that animals run out of food and water and they get stuck on the ships because they cannot be unloaded somewhere else for paperwork reasons,” Gerit Weidinger, EU coordinator for NGO Animals International, told The Guardian.
Egypt has sent fodder and three teams of vets to examine livestock stuck at sea – some bound for Jordan.
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