Monday 29 March 2021 · moved the Index · plateau
Ever Given blocks the Suez Canal
The container ship Ever Given ran aground and became wedged sideways in the Suez Canal on March 24, 2021, blocking one of the world's most critical shipping routes. The vessel was refloated on March 29 after six days of effort by tugboats and dredgers. The blockage disrupted global supply chains, diverted tankers away from the canal, and caused significant freight rate increases.
Peak 877.6 on Monday 29 March 2021. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Public curiosity-led, both over the window and on the peak day. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
The biggest incident since 2020 — its peak is the highest single day on record.
How far it spread
Sector-wide — 5 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Gas carriers is a small readership base — normally about 368 readers a day, so a few hundred extra makes a large multiple.
Readers here means readers of the Wikipedia article on each vessel type — the same source as the Research signal, not news coverage — so an incident can dominate the news without moving this panel. Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: supply chain fragility. Trade press was 1% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 70% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 58% negative overall; 2% strongly so.
Each article is scored on a five-step scale from strongly negative to strongly positive; the bar is the share of coverage at each step.
Sample of the headlines
- Ever Given container ship stuck in Suez Canal 'for weeks' but prices could start moving soon | Businessthetimes.co.uk · 2021-03-25
- Suez Canal: Huge Ever Given container ship is 'partially refloated'telegraph.co.uk · 2021-03-29
- Giant container ship Ever Given stuck in Suez Canal 'partially re-floated'abc.net.au · 2021-03-29
- Suez canal: Stuck Ever Given container ship partially freed from shorelinebbc.co.uk · 2021-03-29
- Ever Given Ship Owner Apologizes For Suez Grounding – gCaptaingcaptain.com · 2021-03-25
- Suez Canal: Tugs resume effort to clear Ever Given container ship blockage in Egypt as traffic jam buildsmsn.com · 2021-03-25
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Ever Given blocks the Suez Canal, peak 877.6 on 29 March 2021. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2021-ever-given-blocks-the-suez-canal/