Four
Bangladeshi workers have died and two others fallen ill after inhaling toxic
gases as they were dismantling a ship at a breaking yard in Baro Aulia of
Sitakunda in Chittagong, police report.
Six
workers were inside of a scrapped ship at the Chittagong yard on Sunday evening when all 6
fell unconscious, according to senior police official Nur Muhammad Bepari. The
workers were taken to the Chittagong Medical college hospital immediately but
doctors declared four of them dead on arrival. 2 remain under medical
treatment, but are alive. Fellow workers
who transported the men to the hospital told The Daily Star that the men
probably encountered a CO2 gas leak.
Bepari
told BBC that they are investigating the incident and will be filing a case. He
added that the families of the victims are not willing to register complaints,
as they fear they will not receive compensation.
The
accident-prone Chittagong
yard has seen many deaths due to inadequate safety standards and follows an
incident this month where two other laborers were killed. Many vessels,
according to environmentalists, are dumped in Bangladesh containing hazardous
materials, dangerous gases, and asbestos due to low regulation.
Environmental
lawyers say that shipbreaking yards continue to violate rules by importing
ageing vessels without pre-cleaning or removal of toxic gases.
Shipbreakers
continue to push safety to wayside, despite recent efforts to ban the import of
ships for breaking, but since the $1.5billion scrap industry provides vital
jobs and infrastructural needs to the country, the bill was overturned.
Bangledeshi
lawyer, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, told BBC that as long as these violations go
ignored, and safety is not enforced, these accidents will continue to happen.
It
is estimated that 80 workers have died, and hundreds injured, in shipbreaking
yards in Bangladesh
since 2006.
Source: Maritime Executive.
17 October 2011
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