Few industries in Bangladesh depend as completely on human labour as shipbreaking. Every tonne of steel the sector yields is cut, carried, and hauled by hand. Yet, accident records suggest an industry that treats this labour as expendable.
The recent incident that took place inside the LNG carrier MT Rasi at Ferdous Steel Ship Recycling Industries in Sitakunda, on August 14, led to the death of 10 workers. A preliminary investigation report, submitted to the Ministry of Industries on August 19, identified hydrogen sulphide gas as a possible cause of the deaths. It is suspected that the workers were exposed to the toxic gas while removing ballast water from one of the ship’s tanks.
Meanwhile, a report in The Daily Star quoted eyewitnesses saying that almost none of the workers were wearing gas masks or protective gears. The youngest victim of the tragedy was a 17-year-old. There were also two brothers among the deceased: a foreman with 17 years at the yard and a cutterman with similar experience. Even the yard’s own safety staff, sent in to check the leak, went in without protective gear. Yet, the yard held valid Hong Kong Convention certification at the time. In other words, on paper, the shipyard was fully compliant.
This was far from an isolated failure. The Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies recorded 129 deaths and 205 injuries in Sitakunda’s yards between 2015 and 2024, a toll that persisted even after certification was introduced to prevent it. Bangladesh does not systematically track these deaths; journalists and labour groups independently gather information from different sources and calculate the total themselves.
However, death statistics alone do not reflect the true damage to ship recycling yard workers’ wellbeing. A 2017 clinical study found asbestosis in 35 percent of workers exposed to asbestos for a decade or more, while a cohort study of shipbreaking workers from Taiwan found that heavy asbestos exposure raised overall cancer risk by 71 percent and lung cancer risk more than threefold. A 2023 Human Rights Watch report quoted a Bangladeshi shipbreaking industry worker on asbestosis—a lung disease caused by breathing in asbestos dust and fibres. He said he personally knew 33 colleagues with the medical condition and four of them succumbed to the disease. However, these deaths do not appear in any accident statistics. In fact, in Bangladesh, male life expectancy in the industry runs roughly 20 years below the national average.
These fatal outcomes are often a result of how the work is organised in the industry, not from any inherent hazard of the trade itself. Bangladesh dismantles ships by beaching them: driving vessels onto tidal sand and cutting them apart, with no dock, no sealed floor, and no cranes. Injured workers are carried to the ambulance by colleagues, often without a stretcher, because emergency vehicles often cannot drive over sand.
Besides, a 2020 report in this daily quoted an official of the Department of Environment saying that they did not have the means to test for asbestos. Moreover, courts have found import paperwork “fabricated” in at least one case. Because yards buy ships on credit and pay interest until the steel sells, speed takes precedence over caution; workers avoid protective gear as it slows them down. Most are hired informally, without contracts, which lets owners undercount casualties or deny a dead worker was ever employed there at all.
The health data confirms a workforce under sustained physical strain. One study of 100 shipbreaking yard workers found 83 percent showing signs of chronic lead poisoning, while doctors treating men injured in a 2024 blast found 14 heavy metals in their blood at levels much higher than normal. Another survey of 500 workers from 2017 found skin disease in 47.8 percent of them. Besides, only 5.4 percent had training, and 27.8 percent were under 18. Wages remain under $5 a day, with no ID card, no paid leave, no insurance, and no pension.
Environmental damage compounds the human cost. Shipbreaking has eliminated an estimated 21 species of fish and crustaceans from the Sitakunda coastline and put 11 more at risk. Furthermore, researchers have found cadmium, lead, zinc, and copper in nearby soil and food crops at levels that pose health risks. Moreover, around 20,000 fishing families who live along this coast report torn nets and a declining catch because of the ship recycling industry, which refuses to provide them with compensation.
Although Bangladesh has the tools needed to regulate the industry, the Ferdous Steel case shows why they fail. Inspectors found violations on several occasions before the August 14 accident and issued notices, but nothing changed. Finally, on July 15, they filed a court case against Ferdous Steel. It remains a question why the yard was not shuttered when violations were found. Unsurprisingly, when inspectors returned after the tragedy, a mob attacked them. Meanwhile, the certificates yards display are issued by classification societies the owners themselves pay, which limits how independent that oversight really is.
Other countries facing similar problems chose enforcement over abolition. China now dismantles ships at quaysides, slipways, and dry docks rather than on beaches, using containment systems that stop waste from discharging directly into the water, and in 2019 it closed its market to foreign-flagged vessels rather than compete on lower safety standards. Turkey’s yards at Aliağa were documented by Greenpeace in 2002 as having conditions comparable to Sitakunda’s today. Once the EU made market access conditional on real standards, the yards rebuilt around sealed, drained work areas, and 11 of Aliağa’s 22 yards now hold EU approval. Workers still die there, but the mechanism carries real teeth: the European Commission has removed yards from its approved list after inspections found violations. A certificate that can be revoked carries weight. One that cannot is merely a formality.
None of these arguments are meant against the industry’s existence. Shipbreaking supplies more than half of Bangladesh’s scrap steel and generates roughly $2.46 billion a year, employing tens of thousands of workers. The problem is not that the industry exists, but that its profitability has not translated into worker or environmental protection. Three reforms can change that. First, gas testing in confined spaces should be carried out by parties independent of the yard and its hired consultants, and they must enforce the law and halt work immediately. Second, Bangladesh needs a genuine occupational health surveillance system tracking asbestosis, heavy-metal exposure, and respiratory illness among workers. Third, formal contracts and identification cards for every worker would close the loophole that lets owners deny employment relationships after fatal accidents.
Bangladesh already possesses the legal instruments it needs. However, until regulatory notices carry the power to stop unsafe work immediately, certification in this industry will remain a formality rather than a genuine protection.
Dr Sibbir Ahmad is assistant professor of economics at North South University. He can be reached at [email protected].
Ariful Islam Abir is a final-year political science student at the University of Dhaka. He can be reached at [email protected].
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.
