“It is like an enormous beached whale. It’s an enormous weight on the sand. We might have to work with a combination of reducing the weight by removing containers, oil and water from the ship, tug boats and dredging of sand…We can’t exclude it might take weeks, depending on the situation.”

–Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis which is trying to free the 400 m (430 yard) Ever Given, almost as long as the Empire State Building is high, which is blocking transit in both directions through the Suez Canal one of the world’s busiest shipping channels for oil and grain and other trade linking Asia and Europe. [Reuters]