WE are shocked and
outraged at the death of four workers from a gas cylinder explosion at Sitakund
ship-breaking yard in Chittagong. The point to note is that they were apparently
untrained having been picked up and put straight on to the job, may be with
some imprecise instructions at best. Nobody also made sure that they had put on
safety gears.
True to our culture of passing the buck,
however, the owner's representative has blamed it on the workers! This is
unacceptable and we demand fixing of responsibility coupled with punishment of
the guilty. Unless examples are made out of the incompetent and callous
employees and the employers are made to pay adequate compensations, the
industry will never be streamlined.
Despite a plethora of
High Court directives, media exposes and oft-repeated environmentalists'
concerns over utter lack of compliance with minimal safety standards,
ship-breaking yards in Sitakund have been virtual killing fields. Inherently
hazardous as the industry is, having to do with dismantling abandoned ships
with highly toxic elements, safety precautions are to that extent extremely
demanding. These ought to begin with
pre-certified selection of vessels through their second checking in our territorial
waters and cleansing to their final
breaking into parts in yards by workers with safety gears on and under the
watch of professional foremen.
Workers will have to be
subjected to proper drill before induction and given refreshers' course from
time to time. Overall, the apology of safety module needs to be firmed up and
updated.
Source: the daily star. 5 April 2014
http://www.thedailystar.net/ship-breaking-death-traps-18731
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