Suez Canal: Everything we know about the grounded Ever Given ship

Suez Canal: Everything we know about the grounded Ever Given ship

The massive container ship blocking one of the world's most important shipping routes remains aground two days after it first became wedged midway along the Suez Canal.Tugboat teams and heavy machines are still battling to nudge the MV Ever Given free as more than 150 shops queue to get past and the ship's owner apologises for the inevitable knock-on effect on global supply chains.It lies helpless in Egypt's historic Suez Canal, which was opened in 1869 to create a channel between the Mediterrean and the Red Sea that allowed cargo vessels to pass between Europe and Asia without having to make interminable journeys through the south Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean, the passage today accounting for approximately one-tenth of the world's seaborne freight.The Ever Green is a behemoth, stretching 400 metres or a quarter of a mile in length and 58.8 metres across, which is no small part of the problem.It is one of the largest ships of its kind in the world and weighs an astonishing 220,940 tonnes, with the capacity in place to carry 20,124 20-foot equivalent unit containers.To put it another way, it's longer than four football pitches and is