How one ship turned the whole world upside down. The story of the Ever Given accident (6 photos)

Many people, reading books about shipwrecks, grand sea battles or discoveries, think that all global events at sea are a thing of the past. And indeed, in many ways this is true. Terrible storms and floods are still possible, but with modern surveillance and rescue systems, they are unlikely to be as destructive as they once were.





The Suez Canal, view from space, photo of January 30, 2001

Large sea battles involving dozens or hundreds of steel giants are a thing of the past.

Modern wars at sea have become, for the most part, clashes between electronic warfare systems and missile and/or torpedo guidance systems, as well as camouflage systems. And if major accidents on the water do happen, they usually go unnoticed by most. In fact, an incident that occurred in our time has not only become popular on the Internet, but also showed how fragile and vulnerable sea routes are in the modern world, and how easily they can be disrupted by one mistake.

The Suez Canal was a true engineering marvel of its time. It connected the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and simplified global shipping many times over. Instead of a long route around Africa, goods from India, China and other eastern countries went to Europe by a much shorter route. The importance of this canal is undeniable even today, because an average of 48-50 ships passed through it per day, even according to 2011 data. However, the value of this structure is directly proportional to its vulnerability. And if for some reason the canal stopped functioning, then the consequences for world trade would be impossible to predict. But the times of global wars are long gone. Few people in the world thought that one of the main sea trade routes in the world could become unavailable. At least until March 2021.

Early in the morning of March 23, 2021, the Golden-class container ship Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal. This happened at 07:40 local time. One of the largest ships of its type in the world (almost 400 m long and 60 m wide, displacement of 266 thousand tons, cargo - 18 thousand containers) nosed into the eastern part of the canal, and, continuing to move by inertia, its stern rested against its western part. In a couple of minutes, all traffic in the Suez Canal was blocked.



Ever Given aground in the Suez Canal, photo from the ISS on March 27, 2021

In the modern age of information technology, what happened immediately became public knowledge. As it turned out, the entire perfectly built and established system of world shipping was very vulnerable. Even one, albeit a very large ship, had an impact on the entire world at once, simply by blocking one of the global transport arteries. The first and most obvious consequence of what happened was the formation of a huge traffic jam of dozens, and then hundreds of ships. They accumulated in the Red Sea, waiting for the start of movement through the canal. By March 26, there were already more than 150 of them, by March 27 — 276, by March 28 — 321, and by March 29, more than 450 ships were waiting for their turn to pass.





Comparison of the number of ships waiting to pass through the Suez Canal. Left — March 21, right — March 25

But this accident had a much greater effect on world markets and stock exchanges. The damage alone from the downtime of merchant ships and the inability to pass through the Suez Canal was simply gigantic. According to later calculations, it cost $400 million per hour, or $9.6 billion per day. Due to the blockade of tanker traffic with oil, its price increased by 5% in the world on the first day, and within a week the price of its transportation increased almost twofold. The need to supply raw materials for the operation of factories was so great that some of the tankers went along the old route bypassing all of Africa.



Container ship Ever Given

All attempts to move the tanker by tugboats or by the tanker's own engines were unsuccessful. Engineering machines were brought in to rectify the situation. Two dredgers began work on deepening the bottom. The fact is that the Suez Canal has a bowl-shaped cross-section, and in order to remove Ever Given from the ground, it was necessary to deepen the bottom. The work continued until March 29. By this time, 4 excavators were already taking part in them. There were also as many as 9 tugboats working, which managed to slightly move the bow of the container ship on the 27th. In addition, about 9,000 tons of water ballast were drained from Ever Given itself, which also affected the ship's draft. On March 29 at 04:30 local time, the container ship partially came off the sandbank, and by 15:00 it was completely free and was towed to the Great Bitter Lake area for inspection and repair of the damage. In order to refloat the Ever Given, 27,000 cubic meters of sand and soil had to be removed from under its nose.

The accident lasted six days in total, during which it was one of the most discussed topics on the global network. The main discussions there were about the reasons for what happened. Various ideas were put forward. For example, that it was a personal revenge of the container ship captain against the cargo company, which allegedly infringed on him in some way. In support of this hypothesis, data was given that, supposedly, the captain "drew" an obscene symbol on the map along the route and then caused a traffic jam in the Suez Canal. A version was also spread that the container ship was being managed by the first Egyptian female captain and, due to lack of experience, made a mistake in maneuvering. And the assumption that the Ever Given was allegedly transporting about a thousand slaves for some Washington pedophile network and was intentionally stopped as a result of a secret operation by the special services seems completely unbelievable.

One way or another, after the consequences of the accident were eliminated, an investigation was conducted and the reasons for the incident were officially announced. They were technical malfunctions and a strong crosswind, which shifted the course of the container ship. At the same time, all the blame for what happened was placed on the captain of the ship and the crew, who did not take countermeasures. However, conspiracy theorists and conspiracists did not pay attention to this, and happily continued to build their theories.



Examples of memes that filled the Internet during the days of the accident

Of course, what happened became the basis for a huge number of Internet memes and other jokes on the world wide web. A separate website based on Google Maps was even created, allowing you to place Ever Given anywhere in the world and see how it would relate to other objects on the map.

Nevertheless, the accident, which lasted only six days, brought to the world information field, in addition to many jokes, quite serious conclusions. It became clear that shipping, on which almost all modern world well-being is based, can be paralyzed almost instantly, if desired, which will lead to unpredictable consequences. The search for alternative routes and trade routes began. As a result, interest in the North Sea has grown. What happened literally just recently before our eyes may become the starting point of many changes in world trade and logistics, and the consequences of this accident will be noticeable for many decades to come.