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2 tugboats deploy to Egypt's Suez Canal as shippers avoid it

Egypt Suez Canal
Posted at 5:19 PM, Mar 28, 2021
and last updated 2021-03-28 17:19:06-04

SUEZ, Egypt (AP) — Two additional tugboats have been deployed to Egypt’s Suez Canal to aid efforts to free a skyscraper-sized container ship wedged for days across the crucial waterway.

That's even as major shippers increasingly divert their boats out of fear the vessel may take even longer to free.

The massive Ever Given, a Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, got stuck Tuesday in a single-lane stretch of the canal.

In the time since, authorities have been unable to remove the vessel.

Traffic through the canal — valued at over $9 billion a day — has been halted, further disrupting a global shipping network already strained by the coronavirus pandemic.