Uploaded April 2015 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Bangladesh is a land of dreams...of teeming life and spectacle. This is the Bay of Bengal - a place where the ships of the world come to die.
“I believe this is the most dangerous job in the world. It's a death trap.”
Hundreds and hundreds of mighty cargo ships and tankers discarded.
40 thousand workers doing filthy – backbreaking work risking their lives for a little more than 3 dollars a day.
“Life here is about survival. It's about getting food on the plate, getting kids to school, just so that they might have a better life than your own.”
Bangladesh is the most densely populated country on Earth and one of the poorest. Tanveer Ahmed is now a Sydney doctor but this where he spent his first six years of his life.
“She's telling me that we used to rent two little rooms down the bottom here. Unbelievable. It probably hasn't changed that much. It's the same owners and that owner used to run a shipyard. In my childhood home there was a real romance about this job. Our landlord was a ship breaker. Most kids wanted to be policemen or firefighters - I wanted to be a ship breaker. I wanted my father, who used to come home with a little briefcase, I wanted him to be a ship breaker.”
Tanveer's come back with us to Bangladesh and he is about to confront the reality of his childhood dream. But it hasn't been easy - the shipyards are notoriously secretive, so it's taken 6 months of negotiations to get this far.
“This is a really sensitive issue for Bangladesh and the industry. They've been shut down before because of negative media attention and they are terrified it is going to happen again. Finally, one of the biggest yards is letting us in. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. It's awe-inspiring on one level. It does feel like we've been transported to a totally different planet.”
“But down in the mud it's a very different story. On any given day there are tens of thousands of these brokers ripping apart these gigantic ships with their bare hands.”
It's all a matter of survival. The workers need their jobs and Bangladesh needs the steel because it has no iron ore of its own.
“You know, they just simply could not build their infrastructure, they couldn't build their high rises without this, without these ships being recycled. This country would be crippled if it wasn't for the ship breakers.”
Charlie Kernaghan and has been campaigning on behalf of the shipyard workers for the last five years.
“This is not a place of work, it's a place of suffering and death. It's hell on earth, there's no other way to describe it.”
“It’s really hell on earth. This is what ship breaking in Bangladesh is. You could actually see these ships from space if you google it. They are run upon the beaches in Bangladesh – these children and young workers going with no safety gear and they dismantle the ship completely. The ships are just cut in pieces with these small torches and it just disappears. The cutters on the ship, inside the ship, and they are cutting gigantic metal plates off the side of the ships. They fall into the sea, they fall into the sand. These groups of workers called loaders and the loaders do nothing but obey and pick up those big sheets, raise them up and put on their shoulder. The things weight on tons and it’s so heavy that they have a chanter who goes on the back of the metal and chant and you have to step in unison. If you step back at the chant, the thing is going to crush you. They resemble slaves. And they walk around either barefoot and flip-flops with broken metal and glass.”
“Thousands of workers have been injured, killed, maimed, burned to death. The very highest wage is going to be 47 cents an hour – 47 cents to dismantle the largest tankers in the world. These are starvation, miserable wages.”
“This Japanese oil tanker has been at sea for 17 years and it's 32 meters high. The only way up is by this flimsy rope ladder and it's just best not to look down.”
“It's a pretty eerie feeling. The ship has just been left abandoned. It's hard to believe that in four weeks' time this tanker will be history. By the time the workers have finished, not a scrap will be left.”
“How do you feel when a new ship arrives in the yard?”
“I am excited then. A new ship arriving means we will have work.”
“This is the first world – the developed world taking advantage of these workers in Bangladesh. “
Bangladesh is a land of dreams...of teeming life and spectacle. This is the Bay of Bengal - a place where the ships of the world come to die.
“I believe this is the most dangerous job in the world. It's a death trap.”
Hundreds and hundreds of mighty cargo ships and tankers discarded.
40 thousand workers doing filthy – backbreaking work risking their lives for a little more than 3 dollars a day.
“Life here is about survival. It's about getting food on the plate, getting kids to school, just so that they might have a better life than your own.”
Bangladesh is the most densely populated country on Earth and one of the poorest. Tanveer Ahmed is now a Sydney doctor but this where he spent his first six years of his life.
“She's telling me that we used to rent two little rooms down the bottom here. Unbelievable. It probably hasn't changed that much. It's the same owners and that owner used to run a shipyard. In my childhood home there was a real romance about this job. Our landlord was a ship breaker. Most kids wanted to be policemen or firefighters - I wanted to be a ship breaker. I wanted my father, who used to come home with a little briefcase, I wanted him to be a ship breaker.”
Tanveer's come back with us to Bangladesh and he is about to confront the reality of his childhood dream. But it hasn't been easy - the shipyards are notoriously secretive, so it's taken 6 months of negotiations to get this far.
“This is a really sensitive issue for Bangladesh and the industry. They've been shut down before because of negative media attention and they are terrified it is going to happen again. Finally, one of the biggest yards is letting us in. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. It's awe-inspiring on one level. It does feel like we've been transported to a totally different planet.”
“But down in the mud it's a very different story. On any given day there are tens of thousands of these brokers ripping apart these gigantic ships with their bare hands.”
It's all a matter of survival. The workers need their jobs and Bangladesh needs the steel because it has no iron ore of its own.
“You know, they just simply could not build their infrastructure, they couldn't build their high rises without this, without these ships being recycled. This country would be crippled if it wasn't for the ship breakers.”
Charlie Kernaghan and has been campaigning on behalf of the shipyard workers for the last five years.
“This is not a place of work, it's a place of suffering and death. It's hell on earth, there's no other way to describe it.”
“It’s really hell on earth. This is what ship breaking in Bangladesh is. You could actually see these ships from space if you google it. They are run upon the beaches in Bangladesh – these children and young workers going with no safety gear and they dismantle the ship completely. The ships are just cut in pieces with these small torches and it just disappears. The cutters on the ship, inside the ship, and they are cutting gigantic metal plates off the side of the ships. They fall into the sea, they fall into the sand. These groups of workers called loaders and the loaders do nothing but obey and pick up those big sheets, raise them up and put on their shoulder. The things weight on tons and it’s so heavy that they have a chanter who goes on the back of the metal and chant and you have to step in unison. If you step back at the chant, the thing is going to crush you. They resemble slaves. And they walk around either barefoot and flip-flops with broken metal and glass.”
“Thousands of workers have been injured, killed, maimed, burned to death. The very highest wage is going to be 47 cents an hour – 47 cents to dismantle the largest tankers in the world. These are starvation, miserable wages.”
“This Japanese oil tanker has been at sea for 17 years and it's 32 meters high. The only way up is by this flimsy rope ladder and it's just best not to look down.”
“It's a pretty eerie feeling. The ship has just been left abandoned. It's hard to believe that in four weeks' time this tanker will be history. By the time the workers have finished, not a scrap will be left.”
“How do you feel when a new ship arrives in the yard?”
“I am excited then. A new ship arriving means we will have work.”
“This is the first world – the developed world taking advantage of these workers in Bangladesh. “
