Ship-breaking booms as global shipping collapses

By Rina Chandran ALANG, India (Reuters) – A global economic slowdown has hit industries ranging from automakers to investment banks, but in one small town on India’s western coast, business is at record levels and workers can hardly keep up with demand. In Alang, home to the world’s largest ship breaking facility on the coast of Gujarat state, the financial year to April will be one of its best ever, as a slowdown in global trade and lower freight rates mean ships are being scrapped faster. But there is a flip side. Activists fret that the booming business will encourage a disregard for safety and environment guidelines, which they say ship breakers are already flouting. Stretched along the 11-km (7 mile) coastline, beached oil tankers and cargo carriers lie in various stages of disembowelment. Peculiar tide patterns that brings high tide in only twice a month enable the beaching of ships right up to the yards. … At the same time, the workers who earn only a few dollars a day, face health hazards as they cut up the hulls of ships, navigating through razor sharp pieces of steel, and being exposed to carcinogens and even radioactive materials from the former cargoes of these ships. "These are the most vulnerable of workers, working in extremely dangerous conditions with little protection or recourse to proper care," said Gopal Krishna of Toxics Watch in New Delhi. …

Slowdown brings bounty to Indian ship breaking town