- It's been over four months since the
Ever Given got beached in theSuez Canal on March 23. - The ship held up cargo traffic for six days but came unstuck after much dredging and digging.
- It finally docked at the Dutch port of Rotterdam on Thursday after authorities released it July 7.
The Ever Given, which blocked cargo traffic in the vital Suez Canal for six days in March after getting stuck, has finally arrived at the Dutch port of Rotterdam, its original destination.
The ship docked at Rotterdam's ECT Delta terminal on Thursday morning, per Reuters. It is expected to remain there unloading its cargo until August 3, when it is scheduled to move on to Felixstowe in the UK.
The ship was stuck in the Suez Canal for close to six days starting March 23. It initially set sail from a port in Yantian, China, before running aground in the crucial passage that accounts for about 12% of seaborne cargo trade.
Measuring more than 1,300 feet long, the ship is slightly larger than the Empire State Building in New York City. It took six trying days of dredging, lifting, and digging to get the ship unstuck, a herculean feat that was initially expected to take weeks.
While the Ever Given was stuck, some ships opted to abandon the Suez Canal and reroute, taking a massive detour around the southern tip of Africa.
Because of the unfortunate and costly situation, the global supply chain was thrown into chaos that lasted for weeks after the ship was freed. A logjam of more than 400 ships ultimately formed.
After the ship was freed, it was not free to go, however. The Egyptian authorities seized the Ever Given on April 13 and held it for months. It released the ship after the Suez Canal Authority arrived at an undisclosed compensation agreement with the ship's owner, the Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha.
The ship finally left Egypt on July 7 - with more than 20,000 containers on board - a full 106 days after it first became lodged in the waterway.