In late November, a
52,000-ton barge eased into this ramshackle port on the Bay of Bengal and came
to rest on a wide, muddy beach.
After nearly four
decades crisscrossing the oceans for an American offshore engineering company,
the DB-101 did not come to erect another oil rig or lay miles of undersea pipe.
It came here to
die.
For scores of large
commercial vessels that reach the end of their seagoing lives each year, the
final port of call is Chittagong in southern Bangladesh, home to the world's
largest — and least regulated — ship-breaking industry.
Dead tankers,
cruise liners, cargo ships and fishing trawlers from around the world molder in
the hazy sunshine along a 10-mile stretch of beach. Thousands of laborers, many
wearing plastic sandals and street clothes, use blowtorches to cut through the
steel and then crank rust-ridden winches to haul the pieces up to dry land to
be sold as scrap.
The world disposed
of 768 ships last year. In terms of tonnage, a third of that demolition took
place in Bangladesh, which surpassed India because of a decline in Indian
demand for scrap steel. The two countries and Pakistan account for about 70% of
all ship breaking.
Bangladesh's
increased market share has raised alarm among environmental and labor
activists, as well as United Nations officials, who say the country has not
kept pace with industry reforms elsewhere. Despite new laws aimed at making the
business cleaner and safer, ships are taken apart here much as they were in the
1980s.
The gently sloping
shoreline north of Chittagong allows a practice known as beaching, in which
ships are piloted directly onto the sand during high tide. With no safe system
to dispose of oil and toxic sludge, their waste continues to pollute the coast.
Training and safety
equipment are scant, and dozens of workers are still killed or seriously
injured each year in falls, explosions and other accidents. Workers are
supposed to be at least 18, but even that basic law is often broken.
"It's a very
hard job," said Mohammed Shujan Islam, 17, a migrant worker from northern
Bangladesh earning $3 a day to help dismantle the DB-101. "But I do it to
help feed my family."
Beaching, in
particular, is highly unsafe, because so much of the work has to be done by
hand, said Patrizia Heidegger, executive director of Shipbreaking Platform, a
Brussels-based advocacy group.
"You're
talking about breaking down the largest movable man-made structures on a bed of
mud," she said. "You can't use any heavy machinery, you can't use
cranes. Workers can't even wear boots because they would disappear in the
mud."
At least 16
Bangladeshi workers died and 22 were seriously injured in ship-breaking
accidents last year, according to the group. Half the deaths occurred in
explosions caused by the gas cylinders attached to blowtorches.
In addition,
workers face the long-term health effects of exposure to hazardous substances
released when the ships are broken down. Researchers in Taiwan who tracked
ship-breaking workers there for more than two decades found elevated rates of
liver, lung and other cancers.
The prime suspect,
asbestos, litters the beaches in golf-ball-size clumps in Chittagong.
Under fire from
international labor and environmental groups, Bangladesh has instituted laws
requiring shipyard owners to provide training and safety equipment and ensure
the ships are rid of toxic material before arrival. Court orders have twice
shut down the yards for noncompliance, only to see them reopen under industry
pressure.
Mohammed
Zia-ur-Rahman, 25, who came to the yards as a teenager to support his parents
and four sisters, blames exposure to ship waste for a steady cough and bumps on
his forearms. The blowtorch operator said workers dread stepping into the
engine room, where gas often remains trapped inside pipe joints.
"It's the most
dangerous place," he said. "Nobody tells us what's inside, but you
can feel the toxic smell."
Every inch of the
retired ships feeds Bangladesh's developing economy. Their carcasses become
scrap metal, often recycled into girders and metal sheets for construction.
Loose goods, including bed frames and life jackets, are sold in the markets.
The Mabiya
ship-breaking yard where the DB-101 was being dismantled is one of the largest
in Chittagong and part of a conglomerate that includes mills that roll scrap metal
into steel rebar.
Signs on the
whitewashed walls of the low-slung compound say "No Child Labor," and
the company website says it is working to meet United Nations standards for
responsible ship recycling.
But inside, Monir
Sarkar, 16, said there are many workers his age or younger. Most are hired by
recruiters, enabling yard owners to remain intentionally ignorant about their
legal status.
Asked whether his
yard employed children, Mabiya's assistant general manager, Pranoy Das, said,
"No, never. Of course, we check these things."
Monir, a slender
boy with wide eyes, said no one has asked his age. As the only child of jobless
parents, he was prepared to lie when a recruiter came to his poor town in
Bogra, in northern Bangladesh, three months ago.
Instead the
recruiter simply handed his parents a small advance on his $90 monthly salary,
and he was off to Chittagong, where he works 12 to 14 hours a day, returning
well after dark to a small red-brick-and-concrete room he shares with three
other laborers.
He recalled his
first day at the yard in January, when a worker hardly older than him
demonstrated how to use a butane cigarette lighter to ignite the blowtorch,
then handed him the lighter. He received no other training, he said.
Monir wears safety
goggles, gloves and a helmet when working on the DB-101, but still wrestles
with fear. "I'm scared every day," he said. "I feel the heat
from the blowtorch on my face and body. It's very strong. Anything can
happen."
McDermott
International Inc., a Houston offshore engineering company that owned the
DB-101 until last year, declined to discuss the working conditions or
environmental concerns.
"Other than to
say we do not condone unsafe, unethical or noncompliant business practices by
any person or entity, we are not in a position to comment further on the
decisions or operations of unrelated third parties," McDermott spokesman
Richard Goins said.
Commercial ships
typically operate for 30 years. Once retired, many are sold to cash buyers in
Asia and the Middle East, who in turn sell to ship-breaking yards that finance
the purchases with high-interest loans. That creates pressure to scrap the
vessels quickly, which activists say contributes to accidents.
Some Western shipowners
have pledged to ensure their vessels are dismantled in countries with better
safety standards. Of the 27 ships that U.S. owners sold for recycling last
year, according to Shipbreaking Platform, 21 ended up in Turkey or India, which
industry experts say have improved conditions at demolition yards.
"A couple of
years ago it was very rare for a shipowner to ask questions about the way his
ship would be recycled, but that is not rare anymore," said Nikos Mikelis,
former head of pollution prevention at the International Maritime Organization,
a U.N. agency.
"I expect in a
couple of years to have a viable two-tier market in South Asia: normal
recycling and responsible recycling," he said.
In January 2015,
Bangladesh began working with the U.N. agency on a detailed project to clean up
the ship-breaking industry. The Bangladesh Ship Breakers Assn., an industry
group with about 100 member yards, says it supports reforms and has taken steps
to improve worker safety, including opening a 250-bed hospital for workers in
November.
Mohammad Aslam
Chowdhury, the association president, pointed to a slight decline in reported
deaths over the last few years. "Accidents are there in any industry in
Bangladesh," he said. "Considering the volume of work in ship breaking,
the accidents are few."
But the industry is
also vulnerable to global shocks. As the demand for scrap metal in China and
elsewhere plunges, activists worry that Bangladeshi yards will struggle
financially, leaving them less money to implement costly reforms.
Having spent nearly
a decade at the yards, Zia-ur-Rahman said he did not expect swift changes.
"My hope is to
leave this work and do some safe job, any kind of job," he said. "I
don't want to keep doing this."
Source:
Los
Angeles times. 9 March 2016
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-bangladesh-ships-20160309-story.html
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