The massive container ship blocking the Suez Canal was straightened and partially refloated early today nearly a week after it ran aground on the vital shipping route and brought billions of dollars' worth of trade to a standstill.
Breakthrough: This picture taken from a tugboat on Monday morning showed the Ever Given substantially straightened, although it remained unclear how long it would take to fully re-open the Suez Canal.
The captain of a rescue crew gives a thumbs-up.
Nighttime operations taking advantage of the supermoon king tide successfully re-floated the Ever Given early on Monday.
The 1,300-foot ship had completely blocked shipping traffic on the vital Suez Canal for a week.
Satellite data early this morning showed the straightened Ever Given surrounded by a squadron of tugboats with its stern no longer appearing to be blocking the entire shipping route
An aerial view taken on March 27, 2021 from the porthole of a commercial plane shows stranded ships waiting in queue in the Gulf of Suez to cross the Suez Canal at its southern entrance near the Red Sea port city of Suez
Tugboats are seen on Sunday near the Ever Given container ship which ran aground in the Suez Canal, Egypt
The plan is for the tugboats to nudge the 400-meter-long Ever Given as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which manages the Ever Given, said.
On Saturday, the head of the Suez Canal Authority told journalists that strong winds were 'not the only cause' for the Ever Given running aground, appearing to push back against conflicting assessments offered by others. Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei (pictured) said that an investigation was ongoing but did not rule out human or technical error.
Peter Berdowski (right), CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given, has since said that said the company hoped to pull the container ship free within days using a combination of heavy tugboats, dredging and high tides.
Rescue crews descended upon the scene in an effort to free the container ship blocking the Suez Canal today.
Emergency crews were ordered to start offloading containers off the enormous carrier and workers plan to make two attempts on Sunday to free the vessel.
