SCRAPS If there are no ships, there is no work. Unemployed shipbreakers and their families instead dig through contaminated soil to salvage scrap metal. They make just 5,000 to 6,000 rupees (£60-£70) per metric tonne, not enough to buy sufficient food.


ACCIDENT PRONE Alang is Gujarat is a major Indian centre for shipbreaking. In any year, official figures show workers in Alang’s shipbreaking yards run a 1 in 500 chance of dying on the job – six times the fatality rate in India’s mines and over 200 times the UK work death rate.

HUMAN WRECKAGE
Global plea on deadly shipbreaking risks

Human Wreckage Hazards 96 Oct-Dec 2006 Order the photospread

HUMAN WRECKAGE
Hazards 96 photofeature, October-December 2006

Asia’s shipbreaking yards provide essential work, but conditions are deadly. Indian workers visiting London call for the carnage to end.

Shipbreaking workers from India travelled to London to expose the deadly risks commonplace in the industry and to demand urgent reforms to save lives.

The workers, attending an October 2006 meeting of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in London, called on the maritime regulatory body to regulate their deadly employers. They told IMO – the specialised United Nations agency dealing with maritime issues, including safety – thousands of shipbreaking workers die, are injured or fall ill when recycling old ships in one of the world’s most dangerous, dirty and largely unregulated industries. Official figures for the Alang shipbreaking yards in Gujarat, India, put the fatality rate at over 200 times the UK workplace death rate. Order the photospread

SAFE WORK “People here don’t have goggles, they don’t have helmets, masks or safety boots – many don’t have any kind of boots,” says Vidyadhar Rane, secretary of the Mumbai Port Trust, Dock and General Employees’ Union. “There should be work, but there should be no compromise on safe work. I am appealing to the developed countries who send their ships to Asia to take some responsibility and save lives.”
Photo: NA Kippenbroeck

Further information

International Metalworkers’ Federation IMF Website •
Shipbreaking webpages

International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF)

International Maritime Organisation (IMO)

Hazards issue 96 contents • More photofeatures