FREEDOM AT LAST

Megaship That Blocked Suez Canal Finally Shunted Out of Sandbank and Tugged Away

The 220,000-ton vessel is now being pulled to a wider stretch of water about halfway between the north and south end of the canal.

The ship that launched a thousand memes has been moved. Yes, after a week of completely blocking off the Suez Canal, and disrupting tens of billions of dollars in global trade, the skyscraper-sized Ever Given has been wrenched out of the canal’s bank and is being towed away. According to the Associated Press, the monumental effort was helped by the peak of high tide, allowing a flotilla of tugboats to remove the ship from the sand. The 220,000-ton vessel is now being pulled to a wider stretch of water about halfway between the north and south end of the canal. Once it arrives, it will undergo a technical inspection to see if it was damaged. It’s still not clear when the 367 vessels that make up the maritime traffic jams on either end of the canal will be allowed to resume their voyages.