On Friday, August 14, nine workers died after suspected toxic gas exposure at the shipbreaking yard of Ferdous Steel Ship Recycling Industries at Bhatiari in Chattogram’s Sitakunda upazila. An immediate report by the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) stated that the workers were cutting scrap inside an old LNG carrier when toxic gas leaked inside the vessel, killing five workers on the spot. Four more workers died in the hospital, while another 10-12 fell seriously ill or were injured. The report observed that excessive carbon monoxide had accumulated inside the ship, causing severe breathing difficulties and loss of consciousness among the workers.
The circumstances preceding this tragedy make the incident even more concerning. The DIFE claimed that it had conducted a routine inspection of Ferdous Steel’s yard and issued a notice on February 2, identifying safety deficiencies and directing the company to correct them. In a second inspection, it found that the earlier instructions had not been adequately implemented and a notice was issued on May 4. The third and last notice was issued on June 8. Since the company remained non-compliant, DIFE finally filed a case against it before the Chattogram Labour Court on July 15. A month later, nine employees of the company died in a tragedy that, had compliance been ensured, would likely have been prevented.
Although DIFE’s decision to file a case is important, the question remains: does its regulatory responsibility end there? The Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006 provides powers intended to prevent dangerous work, not merely to punish violations after the fact. Section 61(2) allows an inspector to prohibit the use of a building, machinery or plant where its use creates an imminent danger to human life or safety. Section 77, dealing specifically with dangerous fumes in confined spaces, including vessels, prohibits entry unless the space has been made safe and a competent person has certified it as fit for entry, or prescribed breathing and rescue measures are in place. Section 85(3) also allows an inspector to prohibit employment in an establishment or part of it where there is an imminent danger to life or safety until the danger is removed.
The Ship Breaking and Ship Recycling Rules 2011 provides additional safeguards by requiring periodic safety evaluation of ship-recycling yards (Rule 23.1), while Rule 23.2 authorises the authority to temporarily suspend cutting operations when unsafe operations are observed and until corrective measures are taken.
Therefore, the law does provide mechanisms to prevent dangerous work. Since DIFE had already identified safety deficiencies and found them unresolved, the probe into Friday’s incident should also explain what preventive measures were considered and whether they were sufficient to stop workers from being exposed to death. If the deficiencies identified during all the inspections involved the same risks that caused the deaths, then it must be answered why those risks were not removed and whether the vessel in question had all required updated safety certifications before workers entered it and continued working on Friday.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. According to media reports, since 2014, over 150 people have died in shipbreaking accidents in Sitakunda, while more than 200 suffered injuries. This year alone, 12 people lost their lives to this hazardous occupation, pointing to a persistent failure to make shipbreaking work safe. Undoubtedly, ship recycling is economically important to Bangladesh. The sector supplies important raw materials to Bangladesh’s steel industry and employs thousands. A 2017 assessment estimated that the industry generated an average annual output of about Tk 53.3 billion and contributed approximately Tk 5 billion annually through customs duties, income taxes and VAT. It also supported an estimated 25,000-40,000 full-time-equivalent jobs. Ship recycling, therefore, is too economically important to ignore. But economic necessity cannot be an excuse for allowing preventable workplace risks to persist.
In this respect, the judiciary recognised the need for preventive regulation of shipbreaking well before the country adopted a dedicated legal framework. In BELA v Bangladesh, (Writ Petition No. 7260 of 2008), concerning the hazardous vessel M.T. Enterprise, the High Court Division, recognising the Basel Convention, issued directions in March 2009 restricting the dismantling of ships without the required environmental clearance and requiring safeguards for safe dismantling. The HC’s intervention preceded the adoption of the 2011 shipbreaking rules and contributed to the subsequent development of a dedicated regulatory framework for the industry.
The Bangladesh Ship Recycling Act, 2018 further strengthened the regulatory framework by establishing the Bangladesh Ship Recycling Board under Section 8 and assigning it responsibility for supervising and inspecting ship-recycling activities under Sections 11 and 15. Bangladesh also acceded to the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, which entered into force internationally in June 2025. The convention sets standards for the management of hazardous materials (Regulation 5), ship-recycling plans (Regulation 9) and authorised recycling facilities (Regulations 15-23). Bangladesh, therefore, has a substantial legal and institutional framework for regulating ship recycling. What it evidently lacks is effective enforcement to prevent known safety risks from killing workers.
Another issue is that several authorities regulate this industry, each responsible for a different role: DIFE for occupational safety, the Department of Explosives for matters such as gas-free certification, the Department of Environment for environmental clearance, and the Bangladesh Ship Recycling Board for key aspects of ship-recycling activities. Therefore, effective coordination among these regulatory authorities is essential. A shipyard’s general approval does not necessarily mean that a particular vessel is safe to enter and dismantle. The necessary vessel-specific safety checks must be completed before cutting begins.
In this respect, an international case also offers a useful perspective. In Hamida Begum v Maran (UK) Ltd [2021], the widow of a Bangladeshi shipbreaking worker brought a negligence claim against a company involved in selling the vessel for demolition. Although Maran did not operate at the Chattogram shipbreaking yard, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales allowed the negligence claim to proceed. However, the court did not finally determine Maran’s liability. The case nevertheless shows that responsibility for unsafe shipbreaking may, in appropriate circumstances, extend beyond the immediate employer or yard operator. The Ferdous Steel investigation should, therefore, look at the role of all parties involved in the vessel’s recycling, as well as the authorities responsible for safety.
Bangladesh has spent nearly two decades developing laws and judicial safeguards for safer shipbreaking. The deaths at Ferdous Steel now raise a simple question: when a safety problem is already known, why are workers still exposed to it? Why are the authorities allowing negligence to claim their lives? When will they take safety compliance with the urgency that it deserves?
Mst Asma Mahmud is a senior civil judge and MPhil fellow in the Institute of Bangladesh Studies at the University of Rajshahi.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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