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- A cargo ship briefly ran aground in the Suez Canal on Thursday.
- The ship was refloated within 15 minutes and did not impact traffic, officials said.
- The incident comes several months after the Ever Given blocked the canal for six days.
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A cargo ship was temporarily stuck in the Suez Canal on Thursday.
The bulk carrier ship, MV Coral Crystal, was "slightly grounded," but freed and refloated within 15 minutes, a Suez Canal Authority official told Bloomberg.
The ship which was carrying 43,000 tonnes of cargo did not impact shipping traffic in the canal as ships were diverted through a parallel channel during the incident, the Suez Canal Authority told Reuters.
The incident comes just months after the Ever Given cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal for six days. In March, the Ever Given pinned in hundreds of cargo ships and forced even more ships to divert their paths.
The channel is a massive thoroughfare that impacts about 12% of global trade. At the time, experts said that the blockage cost the global economy about $400 million an hour.
While the incident spurred a meme-frenzy, it was just one of many mishaps to befall the global supply chain since the pandemic started, pushing delays, shortages, and the prices of goods even higher. Since the pandemic started, the average price for companies to ship their goods overseas has risen over 547%, as compared to the average price over the previous five years.
Today the supply chain continues to face major snags. In August, port delays in Southern California hit an all-time record. Experts told Insider that in light of the Delta variant the shipping crisis will likely not abate until 2023.