The canal undergoes improvements often, being last widened in 2014 and it will be widened again the future. The latest incident helped spur the current widening

The canal undergoes improvements often, being last widened in 2014 and it will be widened again the future. The latest incident helped spur the current widening, but it would have happened anyway. The issue is the canal is too narrow for the largest of modern ships, which are much more massive than what the canal was originaly designed for back in the 1850s, thus it has gone through widenings and other improvements to support modern shipping and this process will continue.