The world’s largest shipping hubs are suffering elevated levels of congestion as containers pile up at seaports from Singapore to Greece’s Piraeus.

Near Singapore on Monday, the backlog was 22% above normal with 53 container ships anchored off the financial and cargo-transit hub, the highest count since Bloomberg News started tracking the data in April.

The pileup is the latest logistical knot in global supply chains, with satellite shipping data allowing for real-time monitoring of port issues globally. 

The container vessel wait immediately off Singapore, which dealt with an unusual surge in Covid-19 cases last week, started Friday and continued over the weekend, topping the previous count of 45 waiting ships recorded on July 21, when Typhoon In-fa roared through Shanghai.

Like all major container hubs, Singapore relies on a delicate logistical ecosystem, where a storm or a Covid-19 outbreak in another port, transit way or transportation sector can ripple widely. Typhoon Kompasu scattered ships out of Hong Kong and Shenzhen over two weeks ago and congestion rates off that port were still 10.4% higher than normal Monday.

Click here for the full article.