- Bangladesh's Chittagong ship breaking site has 80 yards that break down ships and sell on parts and raw materials
- More than 200,000 people work on the site in Bangladesh under squalid conditions with limited safety equipment
- Industry started in the 1960s when a Greek ship sank off the coast and since rapidly grown into a world leader
- The site is so huge and bleak that it was used in Joss Whedon's Hollywood smash movie Avengers: Age Of Ultron
This dark industrial graveyard is where some of the world's largest ships
got to die.
Bangladesh's Chittagong ship breaking site is made from 80 separate
yards, where 200,000 people take apart the forgotten vessels of the sea for
their parts to be melted and sold.
The bleak and filthy scenes are so stark that the site was chosen to film
parts of superhero box office smash Avengers: Age of Ultron.
All the ships are broken down, melted and their parts sold by workers in
squalid conditions, captured by photographer Sahil Ali, 24, in Faujdarhat,
along the 11 miles Sitakunda coastal strip near Chittagong.
Sahil said: 'Our eyes could see nothing but the carcasses of half-cut
retired ships and sea liners scattered across the water.
'I was astonished to see how a few dozen men with their bare fingers
could dismantle a colossal cruise liner within two weeks.
'The environment in which they have to work is truly extraordinary and
the dangers in which they face every day are difficult to comprehend.'
The shipbreaking industry started its operations in the 1960s when a
Greek ship 'MD Alpine' was stranded on the shores of Sitakund, Chittagong,
after a severe cyclone.
The ship remained there for a number of years before the Chittagong Steel
House brought the vessel and scrapped it.
According to a 2012 World Bank report: 'The industry grew steadily
through the 1980s and, by the middle of the 1990s, the country ranked number
two in the world by tonnage scrapped. In 2008, there were 26 ship-breaking
yards in the area, and in 2009 there were 40.'
The entire beach lies hidden by piles of metal, machinery, cylinders, and
hundreds of thousands of other ship parts.
Sahil said: 'One of the old workers informed me that no major investments
were required for engaging in ship breaking.
'The present type of ship breaking in Bangladesh just requires a large
winch, some blowtorches and maybe a bulldozer. The rest of the operation is
just raw human manpower.
'Poverty and millions of people without education are looking for
livelihood opportunities.'
Salvageable parts are sold on while the waste rubber and plastics are
burnt - potentially exposing the workers to poisonous fumes.
And Sahil revealed that Chittagong's giant scale and haunting beauty led
director Joss Whedon to use it for a scene in his Avengers sequel.
He said: 'The workers told us about a big Hollywood production that came
with their crew to shoot the partly destroyed ships - perhaps the scene of an
apocalypse.
'We learned later that the film was The Avengers: Age of Ultron.'
Source: daily mail.
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