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And now it's time for
news from around the world,
in Meanwhile In.
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Meanwhile, in the Suez Canal
there's a bit of an error
there, fun.
Anyway, they've got an issue.
And that issue is the ships are
getting a bit thick these days, and
they're not quite fitting through.
So, as many of you probably know,
on Tuesday morning local time,
the Ever Given, a 1,300 foot
long container ship capable of
carrying more than 220,000 tons
was travelling from China to
the Netherlands through the canal.
When Egyptian authorities say
a dust storm brought low visibility
and heavy winds that caused
the ship to run aground.
And importantly,
to run aground in a way that,
as you can see from this picture,
basically blocked the entire canal.
That is a very important canal for
international trade.
Now, that's just a picture.
You're probably wondering how this
happened and
how they're trying to get it out.
So we do actually have
a visualization from
take a look at this.
Anyway, it's a really big
container ship.
Take a look at this picture.
This is fascinating, it is longer
than the Empire State Building is
tall, Wasney.
These ships are out of control.
>> That is so tough.
And it's so funny, because you
don't think about the logistics of
how we get our goods to us, right?
We live in the one click
economy, baby.
Give me that one click,
buy now Amazon, and that thing just
magically appears at apartment 417.
And I'm happy, the endorphin hit.
I get to open the box, and
the packaging, and everything.
You never even think about,
how did this good even get here?
What went into that?
And it relies upon these modes, and
systems, and conductors of
transport to run smoothly, or
else I'm on Amazon immediately.
How dare you deliver this within
four days and not two?
What the hell is your problem?
Going nuts, and you never think,
you take it for granted.
The logistics that go into
delivering all this stuff to us at
our earliest convenience.
And so it's just wild how sort of
fragile that whole system is,
right?
One little dust bowl, and
these guys got caught off track and
millions in pounds of goods of
cargo is being stopped right now.
>> Yeah.
>> Because of just basically what
equates to a fender bender, man.
>> Exactly.
>> This is a big-ass fender
bender, though.
[LAUGH] >> Is it, is it, well,
let's show how this fender bender
has messed with traffic.
I want to bring up this tweet,
just so you can see.
All of those are individual
vessels, and
some of these vessels are not quite
as big as the Ever Given.
The Ever Given is apparently one of
the biggest in the world.
But huge, it's the amount of
economic damage that's been done.
Our producer Sophie told us,
Sophie, was it the cost to transit
the Suez Canal for
a ship like this is $700,000.
[LAUGH] That is crazy.
But you think toll roads suck.
Well, they're worse for
ships like this.
But anyway, yeah.
And I also learned from our
director, well over 100,000 people
died building the Suez Canal.
Isn't that crazy, Wasney?
One in ten of the prisoner laborers
died to build that thing for some
ship to get stuck in eventually.
>> That's mind-blowing.
Oftentimes, especially as
a New Yorker, people get you to
think about the Brooklyn bridges.
And you always see the pictures of
all those guys with the sludge on
their face and
the metal lunch pail.
And the [INAUDIBLE] images of these
men working with their hands
to build something.
But wow, 100,000, that's crazy.
>> That is absolutely crazy.
Apparently, it's going to take up
to weeks to get the ship out of
the canal.
Although, in theory, they could at
least move it to the side a bit so
that some of the smaller ships
could get through.
But I saw a shot of,
because it's run up on the dirt.
It was this little crane, that was
like digging away at the dirt.
And I looked at it and I thought,
that doesn't have a chance
in hell to work.
And we were joking before the show.
You need to call Superman to have
any chance whatsoever.
He's got to lift that thing out
of there.
But anyway, obviously,
major problem
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