Shipbreaking yards

One of the more jaw dropping "sites" in Bangladesh are the shipbreaking yards in Bhatiara, right outside of Chittagong. Bangladesh, China, and India are home to some of the largest scrapping yards in the world. Parts of huge ships and their skeletons dot the landscape. A supervisor told me that it takes 4 month to take apart the huge super tankers.

After 25 years or so, it's no longer profitable for companies to continue to maintaining and repairing large tanker ships. So they send them to yards to be torn apart, and the raw materials are recycled.


Despite all the awesome scenery, all is not well with these yards. Workers are basically given a crowbar, a hammer, and an acetylene torch and have a go at these huge cargo ships.




The workers get paid as low as $1.50 a day to work under some of the most hazardous conditions. On a weekly basis someone is either maimed or killed. Most workers don't have safety gear, not to mention the ships use to contain hazardous materials. Asbetos is everywhere in these breaking yards.



It took 4 tries and some Bangladesh connections to finally find a yard that would allow me to take photographs in. You see, the shipyards are extremely profitable and operated by an underworld syndicate element. With Greenpeace hounding the owners about worker safety conditions, environmental hazards, and child labor violations, it's no wonder they are a bit camera shy.