Tag Archives: Dust Storm

Tugs work to free giant container ship stranded in Suez Canal

By Yusri Mohamed, Jessica Jaganathan and Florence Tan

CAIRO (Reuters) – The shortest shipping route from Europe to Asia remained blocked on Wednesday as 10 tug boats struggled to free one of the world’s largest container ships after it ran aground in the Suez Canal.

The 400-metre, 224,000-tonne Ever Given ran aground on Tuesday morning after losing the ability to steer amid high winds and a dust storm, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said in a statement.

About 30% of global container shipping volumes pass through the canal each day, carrying everything from fuel to consumer goods. The main alternative route for ships travelling between Asia and Europe, around the African cape, takes a week longer to navigate.

GAC, a Dubai-based marine services company, said authorities were still working to free the ship mid-afternoon on Wednesday, and that information it had received earlier claiming the vessel was partially refloated was inaccurate.

Images posted by the SCA appeared to show the ship positioned diagonally across the canal, blocking its full width, as tugs tried to dislodge it. Photos showed a digger removing earth and rock from the bank of the canal around the ship’s bow.

An official said work to release the ship could continue into the night, weather permitting.

The SCA’s chairman told local media that despite the blockage, a southbound convoy was on the move and that the authority was trying to keep traffic flowing between waiting areas as best it could while salvage efforts continued.

“Once we get this boat out, then that’s it, things will go back to normal. God willing, we’ll be done today,” Chairman Osama Rabie said. The authority was considering compensation for delayed ships, he said.

About 12% of world trade by volume passes through the canal, and it is a major source of hard currency for Egypt, generating $5.6 billion in 2020.

Tracking maps had shown the ship grounded in the southernmost stretch of the waterway, between the Great Bitter Lake and the Red Sea port of Suez.

At least 30 ships were blocked to the north of the Ever Given, and three to the south, local sources said. Several dozen ships could also be seen grouped around the northern and southern entrances to the canal.

REBALANCING EFFORTS

The SCA said it was trying to rebalance the ship, and local sources said efforts could shift towards digging the ship out if the tug boats were unable to release it.

Dutch marine services company Boskalis said its subsidiary Smit Salvage had been hired to help with the operation and was sending 10 people to Egypt.

In such cases, “you really have to do the calculations to understand how solidly she (is) grounded, and how much power you can exert without damaging the vessel,” Boskalis spokesman Martijn Schuttevaer told Reuters.

Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), the ship’s technical manager, said the Ever Given had run aground in the canal at around 05:40 GMT on Tuesday. It said an investigation was underway.

BSM said the crew were safe and there were no reports of pollution. A BSM spokesperson said the vessel was owned by Japan’s Shoei Kisen KK, declining to provide further details. Shoei Kisen KK could not be reached for comment.

Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp, which is leasing the vessel, said the owner had told it the ship “was suspected of being hit by a sudden strong wind, causing the hull to deviate from (the) waterway and accidentally hit the bottom”.

The ship is likely to have been insured for $100-140 million, insurance brokers say.

SUPPLY CONCERNS

Dozens of ships carrying crude, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and retail goods were unable to sail through the canal on Wednesday, potentially disrupting supplies to global markets, shipping sources said.

Oil analytics firm Vortexa said ten tankers carrying 13 million barrels of crude could be affected. Oil prices rose more than 2%. [O/R]

As of Wednesday, five laden LNG tankers were unable to pass through the canal due to the grounded container ship, according to data intelligence firm Kpler.

Of the five, three were bound for Asia and two for Europe, said Kpler analyst Rebecca Chia. She said that if the congestion persists until the end of this week, it would affect the transit of 15 LNG tankers.

During 2020, nearly 19,000 ships, or an average of 51.5 per day, passed through the canal, according to the SCA.

If the Ever Given remained stuck for up to 48 hours, “the impact will be limited to a gradual worsening of already very bad vessel delays”, said Niels Madsen, VP of Product and Operations at Denmark-based Sea-Intelligence.

“If on the other hand, the Suez Canal remains blocked for another 3-5 days, then this will start to have very serious global ramifications,” he said.

(Reporting by Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia, Egypt, and Jessica Jaganathan, Florence Tan, Roslan Khasawneh, Gavin Maguire and Koustav Samanta in Singapore, Yimou Lee in Taipei, and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo; Additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn and Jonathan Saul in London, Mahmoud Mourad in Cairo, Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Tom Hogue, Jan Harvey and Mark Potter)

Beijing choked in dust storm stirred by heavy northwest winds

BEIJING (Reuters) – The Chinese capital Beijing was shrouded in thick brown dust on Monday due to strong winds blowing in from the Gobi desert and parts of northwestern China, in what the weather bureau has called the biggest sandstorm in a decade.

The China Meteorological Administration announced a yellow alert on Monday morning, saying sandstorms had spread from Inner Mongolia into the provinces of Gansu, Shanxi and Hebei, which surrounds Beijing.

The tops of tower blocks in central Beijing were barely visible on Monday morning, and commuters could be seen wearing improvised headwear to protect their faces and hair.

“It looks like the end of the world,” said Beijing resident Flora Zou, 25, who works in the fashion sector. “In this kind of weather I really, really don’t want to be outside.”

Heavy sandstorms also hit neighboring Mongolia, with at least 341 people reported missing, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.

Flights have been grounded out of Hohhot, capital of China’s Inner Mongolia.

Around a fifth of the incoming and outbound flights at Beijing Capital International Airport and Beijing Daxing International Airport had been cancelled as of noon (0400 GMT), more than usual during the sandstorm season, according to aviation data provider Variflight.

The sandstorms were expected to shift south towards the Yangtze River delta and should clear by Wednesday or Thursday, the environment ministry said.

Beijing faces regular sandstorms in March and April due to its proximity to the massive Gobi desert as well as deforestation and soil erosion throughout northern China.

China has been trying to reforest and restore the ecology of the region to limit how much sand is blown into the capital.

Beijing has planted a “great green wall” of trees to trap incoming dust, and has also tried to create air corridors that channel the wind and allow sand and other pollutants to pass through more quickly.

The environment ministry said last year that the situation had improved, with the first storms now arriving much later in the year and not lasting as long as they did a decade ago.

Beijing and surrounding regions have suffered from high levels of pollution in recent weeks, with the city shrouded in smog during the national session of parliament which began on March 5.

“It’s hard to claim we are moving forward when you can’t see what’s in front,” Li Shuo, climate advisor with Greenpeace in Beijing, tweeted on Monday.

(Reporting by Martin Quin Pollard, Stella Qiu and the Beijing newsroom; Writing by David Stanway; Editing by Michael Perry and Karishma Singh)

Dust Storm Shuts Down Phoenix

A major dust storm roared into Phoenix Thursday night shutting down the airport, knocking out power across the city and stopping thousands of residents from being able to travel to holiday destinations.

Sky Harbor International Airport shut down all flights after 8 p.m. because of the storm according to an airport spokeswoman.  Flights resumed about an hour later but over two dozen flights had to be diverted to other airports.

The storm was the first of the city’s yearly monsoon season.  Heavy rains joined the winds of more than 50 miles per hour to knock down trees, flood streets and leave over 25,000 residents without power.

The storm also stopped the city’s “Red, White and Boom” Fourth of July fireworks show in the southeast part of the city.

Two fires also broke out as a part of the storm which firefighters attributed to lightning strikes.

Mount Sinabung Sparking Volcanic Tornadoes

They look like tornadoes and they cause destruction like a tornado.

Except they’re really made of scalding hot white ash from the pyroclastic flow from Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung which has been in the midst of major eruptions.

A web video released on YouTube is showing a  massive pyroclastic flow rushing down the mountain and destroying everything in its path with hot gas and ash.  In the wake of the flow, the video shows multiple tornado-like vortexes that continue to spin and create debris.

Scientists say the twisters technically aren’t tornadoes because there is no cumulonimbus cloud at the top.  The phenomenons are more like dust devils seen throughout the desert southwest.  Heat from the flow causes hot air near the ground to rapidly rise.

The smoke from the volcano is not really smoke but vaporized rock from the heat of the volcano.

Storms In Midwest Invoke Memories Of Dust Bowl

Over the last year, residents of the Midwest have been reporting weather conditions that remind historians of the “Dust Bowl.”

Close to 62% of the United States remain in drought conditions and scientists are reporting that parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico are in “exceptional drought conditions.” Continue reading →