Facts + Statistics: Marine Accidents

On March 23, 2021 the Ever Given container ship, one of the world’s largest container ships, operated by the Evergreen Marine Corporation became stuck in the Suez Canal, causing a six-day blockage. The Suez Canal Authority impounded the ship after it was freed and sought about $600 million in damages, caused by blocking the canal. While the final total of losses from the blockage have not yet been tallied, data from Lloyd’s list pegged the daily toll from the blockage at $9.6 billion a day.

There were 41 large ships totally lost in 2019, down by 23 percent from 53 in 2018, according to latest data from Allianz. Safety & Shipping Review 2020 reports that the 2019 total was the lowest in the past 19 years down almost 70 percent over the past 10 years. Despite the improvement, shipping incidents, at 2,815, is up 5 percent from 2,688 a year ago. Alianz cites rising geopolitical tensions, emissions rules and de-carbonization targets, mis-declared cargo and fire incidents as important risk challenges.

The region encompassing South China, Indochina, Indonesia and the Philippines had the largest number of shipping losses in 2019 with a total of 12, or almost one-third of the 41 losses that year. The region has ranked first in shipping losses over the past decade.

According to the latest year of maritime loss data from Swiss Re, marine accidents killed 1,163 people and caused $197 million in insured losses in 2017. The deadliest maritime disaster occurred in January when a passenger ferry sank, killing 88 people off Nonouti, an atoll in Kirbati in the Pacific Ocean, between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. A boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Zawiyah, killing 74 people. In 2012, 30 people were killed in the costliest man-made disaster of that year when the Costa Concordia cruise ship carrying 4,200 passengers went aground off the coast of Italy, causing $515 million in insured damages losses when it occurred. By mid-2014, insured losses for the disaster had risen to about $2 billion. The greatest maritime disaster in peacetime happened in December 1987, when the Philippine ferry, the Doa Paz, collided with the Vector, a small coastal oil tanker, according to the National Maritime Museum in the United Kingdom. Only 24 of the 4,317 Doa passengers survived. By contrast, 1,500 perished in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.