Chittagong Ship Breaking yard

22.4421591.7336150Koordinaten: 22 ° 26 '32 "N, 91 ° 44 ' 1" O

The ship-breaking yards in Chittagong are located on an approximately seven-kilometer stretch of beach at Fauzdarhat about 15 kilometers north- west of Chittagong. They form the center of the ship-breaking industry in Bangladesh.

Economic importance of the site

This industry developed there in 1969. Between Bhatiara and Sitakunda reside more than 70 companies. About 150,000 people live directly from the ship scrapping. There are currently split about 30 to 40 percent of the approximately 700 annually around the world decommissioned ocean-going vessels. Revenue in 2009 is estimated at a sum equivalent to about 700 million U.S. dollars. Much of the ships will be sold at or near Chittagong, such as doors, kitchen facilities or beds.

Occupational Safety and environmental conditions

Massive criticism find the low wages, lack of job security and low environmental protection. In the years 1990-2010 there were approximately 1,000 deaths, presently there are more than 20 deaths per year. In December 2009, four workers died in an explosion during the decomposition of Agate. The workers are confronted with asbestos, heavy metals, oil residues, TBT, PCBs and mixtures of toxic substances.

Personal protective equipment is not available or not usually in sufficient quantity. So there is rarely fine dust masks, no respiratory protection for dealing with asbestos, no goggles, and safety shoes. Most work barefoot in the muddy area, which is why it often comes to injuries, because the mud floor sharp metal pieces are overlooked. Most recently, spent some workers in the better companies, protective helmets. Most workers have work-related illnesses. Technical aids are almost not available. There are motorized winches, with which one, can continue to pull into the dry wrecks after they have accrued at spring tide. From the ship separate, heavy metal plates are mostly moved by hand, which means enormous physical stress for the worker. Child labor is not officially condoned. It happens that twelve year olds from families at risk of poverty work in the shipyards.

In the media

The environmental situation and the working conditions are shown from 2007 in the documentary Eisenfresser by Shaheen Dill- Riaz. The attorney Rizwana Hasan complained environmental reasons against the scrapping and received 2009 in the U.S. with the Goldman Environmental Prize doped $ 150,000. Under the title gravedigger of ships - scrapping in Bangladesh one produced by the West German Radio in Cologne documentation in the program was broadcast from Phoenix.

Examples of scrapped vessels

• Agate (2009)
• Horta Barbosa (1998)