The Suez Canal got blocked again and everyone made the same joke

It happened again…

The Suez canal became the biggest meme of 2021, after one of the world’s largest cargo container ships turned sideways and disrupted the entire global shipping system.

Back then, it was the Ever Given, a 400m-long, 59m-wide vessel, which became lodged sideways across Egypt’s narrow waterway.

The blockage forced the owners to pay $200m to the Suez Canal Authority after causing severe delays.

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On Wednesday, though, there was another blockage to worry about.

The tanker ran aground close to the spot that the Ever Given came unstuckSuez Canal Authority (sca)/Reuters

A tanker heading for Saudi Arabia measuring 250-metre long, known as the Affinity V ran aground close to the same spot the Ever Given came unstuck.

Ship monitoring service TankerTrackers tweeted that the ship “temporarily clogged up traffic and is now facing south again, but moving slowly by tugboat assistance.”

The Ever Given was stuck on the canal last yearAFP via Getty Images

Thankfully, though, there was help on hand and tugboats were able to refloat the ship in the space of a few hours.

Things were back to normal and the chaos of the incident in 2021 was avoided.

It might have only been a few hours, but there was plenty of time for the internet to react to the second blockage in two years.

Affinity V reportedly set off from Portugal and was heading to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu.

Blockages in the canal have a huge knock-on effect on global shipping. Around 12 per cent of world trade goes through the canal, offering the fastest route between Asia and Europe.