Suez Canal: Effort to refloat wedged container ship continues
A giant container ship remains stuck across Egypt's Suez Canal after attempts to dislodge it on Saturday's high water failed.
Canal officials said some progress had been made, however, and more tugboats were joining the trouble on Sunday.
Alternative arrangements are being put in situ just in case the operation fails.
Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has ordered preparations to lighten the load of the stranded ship.
That would involve transferring some containers to a different vessel or to the canal bank. Experts earlier told the BBC that such an operation would involve bringing in specialist equipment, including a crane that might got to stretch quite 60m (200ft) high, and will take weeks.
The Suez Canal is one among the world's busiest trade routes, and therefore the Ever Given - a part of the Evergreen fleet - has been wedged in it since Tuesday.
More than 300 ships are stuck on either side of the blockage and a few vessels have had to reroute around Africa.
On Saturday 14 tugboats pulled and pushed the Ever Given at high water to undertake to dislodge it. At an equivalent time, dredgers continued to get rid of thousands of tonnes of sand and clay from where the bow was trapped within the canal's bank.
Although strong tides and winds complicated efforts, the tugboats managed to maneuver the ship "30 degrees from left and right", said General Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).
Footage posted on Twitter seemed to show the tugboats honking their horns to celebrate this small victory.
Why is that the Suez Canal so important?
About 12% of worldwide trade passes through the 193km (120-mile) canal, which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and provides the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe.
An alternative route, round the Cape of excellent Hope on the southern tip of Africa, can take fortnight longer.
According to data from Lloyd's List, the blockage is holding up an estimated $9.6bn (£7bn) of products every day - or $400m an hour.
Gen Rabie estimated that Egypt was losing up to $14m in revenue every day that the canal was closed.
In Syria, authorities have begun to ration fuel after supplies were delayed by the stalled traffic within the Suez Canal . The war-torn country was already battling power cuts and inflation pushing up the worth of products.
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