Just like auto-mobiles and aeroplanes, oil tankers, cargo ships, aircraft carriers and other huge ships eventually reach the end of their working life. Where do they go to die? Pakistan, India, Turkey, and Bangladesh.
Chittagong is home to the world's second largest Shipbreaking yard. The Shipbreaking industry has been the focus of a lot of negative media attention over the last few years. Many older ships are built with potentially dangerous materials and substances such as asbestos and lead based paint, and dismantling them is an involved and extremely dangerous process.
The cost of dismantling a ship in a developed country is prohibitively high, so it's easier and far more cost effective to ship them off to Bangladesh, where labour is cheap and plentiful, human rights are negligible, there's no such thing as a minimum wage, and health and safety is effectively non-existent. The ships, some as large as 80,000 tonnes (!), are dismantled by hand by an army of Bangladeshi workers, with no safety equipment, wearing flip flops or sometimes bare feet.. Unsurprisingly, accidents and deaths amongst the workers are common place. Still, in a country as poor as Bangladesh, there is no shortage of willing workers.
Many have tried to shut down the Shipbreaking yards, but all have failed. In such a poor country many workers have no other option. Foreigners and are generally regarded with suspicion and normally not allowed in, as a few years ago some foreign journalists published an article about the working conditions at the yards which was published internationally. In the resulting backlash many workers lost their jobs.
Rahmat is an ex employee of Hotel Golden Inn who now works at a 5 star hotel, and runs a business on the side taking foreigners to the yards. When he was 18 he worked at the yards for a month, during which time a group of workers died as a result of someone welding through a gas tank.
He met me at my hotel, we agreed on a price, rented a CNG and off we went. Before we even got to the main beach, we stopped at a river, which was full of old lifeboats from Hong Kong.
When we arrived, Rahmat left me in the CNG while he went to talk to the guards. The CNG was mobbed by a bunch of super cute kids.
As you can see, we didn't get particularly close, but to be honest i was kind of relieved, as I'm not sure that I want to see a bunch of people working in such appalling conditions. Seeing these huge ships sitting on the beach in various stages of deconstruction is pretty awe inspiring though. It was like something out of The Road.
Outside the yards, there are a bunch of shops selling fixtures and curios salvaged from the ships.
The next day, I caught the bus to Bandarban…
I stayed at hotel Golden Inn, which was 660 taka. The second time I stayed in Chittagong on the way from Cox's Bazar to Srimangol, I stayed in Super Sylhet, which was better and half the price. Both are on station rd and are opposite each other.
Source: https://joeliscurious.wordpress.com/tag/joel-vinsen/
Chittagong is home to the world's second largest Shipbreaking yard. The Shipbreaking industry has been the focus of a lot of negative media attention over the last few years. Many older ships are built with potentially dangerous materials and substances such as asbestos and lead based paint, and dismantling them is an involved and extremely dangerous process.
The cost of dismantling a ship in a developed country is prohibitively high, so it's easier and far more cost effective to ship them off to Bangladesh, where labour is cheap and plentiful, human rights are negligible, there's no such thing as a minimum wage, and health and safety is effectively non-existent. The ships, some as large as 80,000 tonnes (!), are dismantled by hand by an army of Bangladeshi workers, with no safety equipment, wearing flip flops or sometimes bare feet.. Unsurprisingly, accidents and deaths amongst the workers are common place. Still, in a country as poor as Bangladesh, there is no shortage of willing workers.
Many have tried to shut down the Shipbreaking yards, but all have failed. In such a poor country many workers have no other option. Foreigners and are generally regarded with suspicion and normally not allowed in, as a few years ago some foreign journalists published an article about the working conditions at the yards which was published internationally. In the resulting backlash many workers lost their jobs.
Rahmat is an ex employee of Hotel Golden Inn who now works at a 5 star hotel, and runs a business on the side taking foreigners to the yards. When he was 18 he worked at the yards for a month, during which time a group of workers died as a result of someone welding through a gas tank.
He met me at my hotel, we agreed on a price, rented a CNG and off we went. Before we even got to the main beach, we stopped at a river, which was full of old lifeboats from Hong Kong.
When we arrived, Rahmat left me in the CNG while he went to talk to the guards. The CNG was mobbed by a bunch of super cute kids.
Rahmat came
back; we were allowed in. It was a little sketchy and I felt a bit like
some sort of secret agent. I kept my hood up, shot my camera from the
waist, and tried my best to look inconspicuous. Every so often he'd be
all 'hide your camera!' when a guard would walk up, but they were all
really friendly and generally just curious. I suspect that it probably
would have been a different story if we were anywhere near to where
people were actually working.
Outside the yards, there are a bunch of shops selling fixtures and curios salvaged from the ships.
The next day, I caught the bus to Bandarban…
I stayed at hotel Golden Inn, which was 660 taka. The second time I stayed in Chittagong on the way from Cox's Bazar to Srimangol, I stayed in Super Sylhet, which was better and half the price. Both are on station rd and are opposite each other.
Source: https://joeliscurious.wordpress.com/tag/joel-vinsen/
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