# The Ship Graveyard of Chattogram

> Inside Chattogram's shipbreaking yards, where the world's old ships are torn apart and workers pay the price

Published: 2026-10-06 · Desk: Bangladesh · Source: Tezzfeed Desk · By: Maliha Rahham

On the coast of Chattogram, enormous ships come to die. Giant vessels sit along the beach, surrounded by the Bay of Bengal but when the cutting starts, workers climb inside the ships and use blowtorches to cut through tonnes of steel, cranes pull apart massive pieces of metal while workers search for anything that can be reused or sold. This is shipbreaking and Chattogram's Sitakunda coast has become one of the world's biggest centres for it.

It is also one of the most dangerous places to work as Bangladesh has become a major destination for old ships because dismantling them here is much cheaper than doing it in many richer countries. The ships are brought close to shore where workers take them apart piece by piece. Almost everything can be sold or reused from steel and machinery to furniture and electrical equipment. The industry provides jobs for thousands of people and supplies a huge amount of recycled steel to Bangladesh. 

An old ship is not just a giant pile of metal as it can contain fuel, chemicals, asbestos, oil, paint and gases trapped inside tanks and pipes. Workers may have to enter dark, cramped spaces where dangerous substances are still present. They also work around enormous pieces of steel, heavy machinery, fires and explosions therefore the consequences can be deadly.

In August 2026, 10 workers died at the Ferdous Steel ship recycling yard in Sitakunda after being exposed to toxic gas inside the former LNG carrier MT Rasi. A preliminary investigation found hydrogen sulphide inside the tank where the workers had been working. One worker who survived described hearing people suddenly shouting “gas, gas” before the fumes became so strong that rescuers had to retreat. What makes the tragedy even more disturbing is that it happened at a time when Bangladesh was supposed to have stronger rules for ship recycling.

The Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships became mandatory in Bangladesh in June 2025. Under the system, ship recycling yards are supposed to meet international standards for safety and environmental protection. Some yards are known as “green yards” because they have been certified under these standards but having a certificate does not automatically make a workplace safe.

Before the 2026 disaster, the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments had reportedly already warned Ferdous Steel about safety problems. The department issued several notices and eventually filed a case against the yard in July. 

There was another problem too. The Department of Environment later said the yard was dismantling MT Rasi without a renewed environmental clearance. Its previous clearance had expired just two days before the accident. The yard was subsequently fined Tk 5 lakh and ordered not to resume shipbreaking until its clearance was renewed. This is not just one unlucky accident. Between 2015 and 2024, at least 129 workers were killed and another 205 were injured in accidents at shipbreaking yards in Sitakunda according to figures presented by the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies. 

The dangers range from falling steel and crane accidents to explosions, fires and toxic gas. In the first six months of 2026 alone, a BILS report recorded at least 28 accidents in shipbreaking yards around Bangladesh, with three workers killed and 25 injured. Around 80 percent of the accidents were linked to falling heavy objects, cranes and wires, gas explosions or fires. 

Breaking apart a ship can release oil, heavy metals, chemicals and other hazardous materials into the surrounding environment. The beaches of Sitakunda are not isolated industrial zones. Fishing communities and other people live and work nearby which means pollution from the yards can affect more than just the workers.

At the same time it would be unfair to describe shipbreaking as completely useless. Recycling ships gives Bangladesh valuable steel and provides employment for many people. Globally, ship recycling also prevents huge amounts of steel from going to waste. The real question is how the ships are being recycled and who is paying the price for keeping the process cheap.

In 2024, 409 ships were dismantled around the world and 255 of them ended up in South Asian yards in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The NGO Shipbreaking Platform said 80 percent of the world's scrapped ship tonnage was dismantled under what it described as substandard conditions in these three countries. 

For the people standing on the beach watching these enormous ships being torn apart however, this is not really about statistics because it is someone's workplace. Someone's father comes home covered in dust and oil, someone's son climbs inside a ship carrying a blowtorch, someone waits for a worker who may not come home that evening. The ships arrive in Chattogram after years of travelling across the world's oceans because they are considered too old to keep sailing but sometimes, the people dismantling them are the ones who end up paying the highest price.

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