Alright, hello guys, this is Dough. I am here in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
I'm here with my friend Faisal.
Hi.
And he is so nice.
He's agreed to help me out to visit the ship breaking yards of Chitagong
which are very famous where ships go to die.
What did you say? The name of this place is Kumira. Kumira? Kumira.
Where we are now? Now, now we are in AK Khan Mor (Square).
AK Khan Mor (Square) and we're going to Kumira? Yeah.
So, we are going to head there shortly.
We're just waiting to catch a mini bus to the shipyards.
I've heard that
they are not very fond of foreigners walking around with cameras there
which I'll talk about more later in this video but going to get as close as I can.
I hope it turns out well. Let's see how it goes.
Here we go.
Alright, guys. So, we're on the bus now and we are headed to the shipyards.
Okay, we got off the bus.
So I just found out from Faisal that
the people here speak a different language not Bangla not Bengali.
They speak Chitagongian language.
So in Bangla "How are you?" is "KEMON ACHEN?"
and in ChitagonGian it's "KEN CHO?".
Are those fishing nets? Yes. Wow. Fishing net.
This is area is fisher man's village. Fisher village? Fisherman's village?
Oh my Gosh! Wow! Oh my Gosh!
I will try my best for... Thank you, man. Thank you.
We're going to try our best to get in there. We'll see.
Oh big fire!
Wow! This is this is a pretty intense place.
Okay, you sit down. Okay, okay.
Alright, guys. So, we got turned away from that one
but we are going to check out another shipyard.
There are many, many, many in this area.
So, we're continuing on.
Alright, guys. So, we got turned away by a couple more shipyards.
So, we're going to a bridge now that sticks out into the water
and hopefully, I'll be able to get some drone shots
and get in kind of close there but we will have to see with the wind and what not
but I'm going to do my best
and we'll keep trying to see if we can get access to any of them.
Wow!
So guys, we were just over there somewhere trying to get into one of these yards
where you see these big ships.
We were not able to yet. We'll see what happens.
Now, we're here on this bridge and look over on this side.
There are boats on the other direction as far as you can see. Just fade off.
Unbelievable. There's so many ships here. We're at the end of the dock now.
The end of the bridge.
And we're going to see if we can get a boat, hire a boat
to get us even closer to those ships to take a closer look.
No, no, it's okay, get on.
Alright, here we go.
These are the ship breaking yards of Chitigong, Bangladesh.
Ship breaking is big business here.
The industry began in the 1960s
and grew to handle up to 50% of worldwide ship breaking as recently as 2012.
The industry employs over two hundred thousand Bangladeshis
and provides over half of all the steel in the country.
Chitigong is famous in the shipping industry known as the place
where ships go to die.
And the yards were even featured in one of Marvel's Avengers movies.
But there is a darker side to this industry.
Chitigong was able to grow so quickly as a ship breaking hub largely
because of its extremely cheap labour and low environmental standards.
These two factors and others
made Chittagong highly affordable place for ship owners
to ditch their ships once they were taken out of service
but they also made ship breaking in Bangladesh one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
In 2014, National Geographic published a story on Chitigong ship breaking industry
and brought the reality of life in the yards to an international audience.
They exposed thousands of workers with little to no formal training
and almost no protective equipment.
Most workers wore flimsy plastic flip flops working for 12 to 16 hours a day.
Rampant asbestos, ships filled with toxic chemicals,
massive explosions, and falling chunks of metal
all made working in the yards especially deadly.
Amidst the fallout from the Nat Geo story,
some shipping companies pledged to stop using the Chittagon Yards altogether.
And unsurprisingly, it also became a lot harder for outsiders to gain access to the yards.
Today, conditions in the Chittagon Yards remain far from perfect.
According to the Guardian as of 2017,
only one yard in Bangladesh met international standards.
Still it appears that some improvements have been made.
The few workers I gotta look at for my drone
appeared to be wearing hard hats and protective gear.
And the few yards I tried to visit
made sure to call out their compliance on signs outside their facilities.
But there are over 80 privately owned ship breaking yards in Chittagong
and conditions in the yards can vary.
All of this. So all of this is part of the ships? Yeah.
So right now we're driving past the area where all of the stuff
that they salvage from the ships ends up.
And it's all sorted and you know either turned into scrap, sold for scrap
or recycled or sold on in any way that it can be.
But this just goes on for as long as you can see, it's unbelievable.
Look at all this. And all this is from the ships? Yes.
From the ship's kitchens, the sinks, the rails, the metal cabinets, it's everything.
Everything, everything. Even life jackets!
Unbelievable!
Look at this. Look at all the ladders and pots and pans and buoys, trash cans.
Man, you got all the stuff that's actually on the ship
that's left on the ship when the owners sell it tothe yard.
This Whole area smells kind of like welding, like burning metal.
You can totally smell it in the air even as you drive along.
There's a lot a lot of metal being processed here
and plastic and wood and a lot of other stuff. Basically everything.
Here are like what is that? Shower? Toilets from the boats. Wow.
More boats.
Chairs, tables, cabinets, sofas.
It's hard to comprehend the scale of this. It's unreal.
Alright, guys, we are here now at a nice spot in Chittagong or Chattagram
two names for this city by the way.
Just watching the sunset absolutely beautiful.
That's going to be the end of this video I hope you enjoyed
learning a bit about the ship breaking yards here in Chittagong.
I'm sorry I couldn't get closer and talk to the guys that are working there
but I hope it was still enjoyable.
I've got a lot more from Bangladesh coming very very soon.
So, stay tuned. Other than that thank you so much for watching.
And I'll see you in the next one. Bye bye.