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Ship gets stuck in Suez Canal - 12th April 2021
Ships have begun to travel along the Suez Canal again. For six days at the end of March, nothing could move. A huge ship, the Ever Given, had blocked the busy canal. Now experts are trying to find out what happened.
The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It is the shortest route from Asia to Europe. 12% of world trade passes through it. The Ever Given got stuck in the middle of the Suez at the end of March. Huge queues of boats developed. Many ships had to take different routes to their destinations. The delay stopped trade, which cost nearly $10 billion a day.
Bad weather probably caused the problem. Hundreds of people and boats came to help but it was difficult because the Ever Given weighs 200,000 tonnes. Finally, the ship was freed after nearly a week.
The ship was carrying 18,000 containers with products inside. They were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, it is waiting to travel to the UK. Experts need to discover exactly why the ship got stuck.
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