Satellite Photo Shows How Giant Ship Is Blocking Suez Canal

One of the world's largest cargo ships is still stuck in Egypt's Suez Canal, blocking one of the world's key shipping routes.

The mega cargo container ship, called Ever Given, turned sideways and became horizontally wedged in the canal following heavy winds. In images captured by a Planet Labs’ Dove satellite Tuesday, the ship, which is around 1,300 feet long and 193 feet wide, can be seen blocking the passageway, CNBC reported.

Capella Space, a satellite imagery specialist firm, also gave another look at the Ever Given, which weighs an estimated 220,000 tons and can carry up to 20,000 containers, through a synthetic aperture radar image. The photo showed how the cargo ship was wedged into the walls of the 120-mile long man-made waterway.

The ship appears blurry in the image "due to its movement on the water," according to Capella CEO Payam Banazadeh. "We took this image over 20+ seconds so you are seeing the ship movement during those 20 seconds," Banazadeh wrote in an email to CNBC.

As of Wednesday morning, the Ever Given had been partially refloated and moved alongside the bank of the canal, Suez port agent GAC told Reuters.

“The vessel remains aground as of this moment of time, but efforts to re-float her continue in close cooperation with the Suez Canal Authority,” a spokesperson for Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the technical manager of Ever Given, told CNBC.

According to Evergreen Marine, the ship's Taiwan-based operator, the Ever Given ran aground due to strong wind just as it was entering the canal from the Red Sea, but none of the ship's containers had sunk.

As of Thursday, the giant ship remains stuck in the canal, with little progress being made since Tuesday, CNBC reported. Multiple tugboats have already been sent to the scene to assist, but the process is expected to take days.

“Dredgers are working to clear sand and mud from around the vessel to free her. Tugboats in conjunction with Ever Given’s winches are working to shift the vessel,” said Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which also confirmed that none of the 25 crew members has been injured from the operation and no cargo has been damaged.

More satellite images have shown a buildup on either end of the waterway as the Ever Given continues to halt the flow of traffic in the area.