The Suez Canal is being widened. Will or not it’s sufficient to cease one other ship getting caught?

In an effort to avoid a repeat of the event, in mid-May, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) announced it had started dredging work to widen and deepen the southern part of the canal where the Ever Given was jammed.

The 30-kilometer-long area will be widened by 40 meters (131 feet) to the east and deepened to 72 feet, up from 66 feet, according to the SCA. Plans also include extending the second lane near the Great Bitter Lake, which opened in 2015, by 10 kilometers (6 miles) — allowing two-way traffic along an 82 kilometer (51 mile) stretch.

The work is intended for “maximizing the canal’s efficiency and shortening the vessels’ transit time, as well as raising the navigation safety,” said a press release from the SCA. But there are still questions as to whether this will be enough to prevent future blockages.

“The widening of the canal is a smart move,” Sal Mercogliano, a maritime historian at Campbell University in North Carolina, tells CNN. “The question that I have is if you widen…

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