Monday 19 February 2024 · below the Index · spike
Houthi attacks damage cargo ships in Red Sea
Multiple cargo ships were attacked by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea during mid-to-late February 2024, with at least one British-registered vessel sustaining severe damage and causing an oil slick. US military and maritime agencies reported missile strikes on several vessels transiting the region.
Peak 118.0 on Monday 19 February 2024. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Media-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
This was above 92% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Monday 29 January 2024.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
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: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 2% 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 90% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 35% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- Missiles fired from Houthi-controlled areas toward bulk carrier in Gulf of Aden, US sayscnn.com · 2024-02-16
- Crew abandon Rubymar cargo ship after Houthi rebel missile attackscmp.com · 2024-02-19
- Rubymar cargo ship targeted by Yemen's Houthi rebels 'at risk of sinking'france24.com · 2024-02-19
- Attacked UK cargo ship could sink, Houthis boastthetimes.co.uk · 2024-02-19
- Houthis claim cargo ship is at risk of sinking after Red Sea attacktheguardian.com · 2024-02-19
- Houthi attack forces MV Rubymar cargo ship to evacuate off Yemenwashingtonpost.com · 2024-02-20
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
- composite index was above 110 in this window but never itself showed genuine elevation (z < 2.0); demoted out of tier A — see README 'Threshold tuning'.
- tier C: only a Wikipedia article, GDELT sub-vocabulary term, or social per-term query fired — not yet confirmed as a real maritime incident (Phase C naming/is_maritime_incident does that).
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
- coverage filtered to articles matching this incident specifically (720/1074 kept) — see coverage.filter.terms
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Houthi attacks damage cargo ships in Red Sea, peak 118.0 on 19 February 2024. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2024-houthi-attacks-damage-cargo-ships-in-red-sea/