A canal services firm said the maritime traffic jam on both ends of the Suez Canal increased further on Friday, following which the waterway was blocked.
On Monday, disposal teams freed the skyscraper Ever Give, ending a crisis that halted one of the world’s most important waterways and halted billions of dollars a day in maritime commerce. At the time, canal officials said that more than 420 ships were waiting to free the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned vessel to make the crossing.
Lathe agencies said a total of 357 ships crossed the canal as the ship was rebuilt by a flotilla of tugboats to re-float, helped by the tide. The number of ships awaiting transit fell to 206 on Friday, the company said, from more than 300 a week.
Near the town of Ever Giving Suez, about 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) north of the southern entrance, the side of a one-lane portion of the canal had crashed. The long, alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa forced some ships – a 5,000-kilometer (3,100 mi) roundabout costs hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs. Others waited for the blockage to end.
The unprecedented shutdown, which exacerbated fears of extended delays, shortages of goods and rising costs for consumers, already under pressure from the coronovirus epidemic, put the shipping industry under pressure.
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