Container ship sinks in Strait of Hormuz as Iran steps up attacks

BREAKING: Container ship sinks in the Strait of Hormuz as Iran escalates its strikes on commercial vessels transiting the waterway.

A container ship has gone down in the Strait of Hormuz.

It sank while transiting the waterway, as Iran steps up its attacks on commercial shipping moving through the strait. That's the narrowest chokepoint in global trade, right here between Iran and Oman, and roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes through it alongside the container traffic that just became a target.

This is a line being crossed. Harassing ships is one thing. A vessel actually sinking in the world's most important shipping lane is another, and every insurer, every carrier, every navy in the region now has to recalculate. Shipping companies were already weighing whether the strait is worth the risk. Today's answer got harder.

The strait stays open because ships keep sailing it. The moment they stop, the pressure moves from the water to every economy that depends on it.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.