Just weeks ahead of the entry into force of the Hong Kong Convention (HKC) for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships, another accident has claimed the life of a shipbreaking worker in Alang, India—widely regarded as the world’s largest ship dismantling yard and one that asserts its compliance with the convention’s standards.
According to the Belgium-based organization NGO Shipbreaking Platform, on May 20 this year, twenty-year-old Satur Bhai from Gujarat, who was employed as a helper ( begari ), a typically untrained, underpaid and unprotected position, fell to his death while dismantling a vessel at plot No. 50. He was reportedly tasked with removing furniture from the ship’s seventh level without a safety harness.