Shipbreakers

[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] it is believed the goddess Kali protects this place at dawn a ritual offering invokes her name deliver me across this ocean of suffering Oh Kali destroy my sorrows it is the shipbreakers of Prayer [Music] [Music] this is a line on India's bay of candy [Music] a place where ships come to die and men die wisdom [Music] they come from all over India from impoverished towns and villages where there is no work little older [Applause] when I'm not on my name is Narayan Chen but everyone calls me me too I come from a poor village poorest era Baba mob my parents live in sheer poverty and hunger [Music] meet up jaga gossip nickeled I got the Uganda bath where a car bought a vinegar when I decided to come I told my friend don't tell my parents until I'm on the train when my parents found out they cried you should have studied learn something what is there in Allah I told them I'll send whatever money is left after I have paid for my own basic necessities nothing could have prepared me - for what he was about to see hundreds of the world's largest ships beached like great whales on the shore this is the biggest ship graveyard in the world on ten kilometers of oily sand 40,000 men tear apart half the world's discarded ships with their bare hands it is one of the biggest recycling operations anywhere it is also an environmental disaster for the man who break the ships the paradox is clear the job that might kill them is their only hope of survival [Music] [Music] along the way I made when I came here I saw a huge piece of iron sink into the sea I wonder how a big ship floats and then control Allen control Wilma Wilma come in please I tied on the Arabian Sea optimum conditions for the first step of ship breaking a beaching to 5-0 okay still increasing right for a sailor the most unnatural thing in the world is to be a ship nine thousand tons of steel bowing at full speed straight for sure it's a tense operation guided only by the human eye and simple compass direction this is the journey every captain dreads it is my ship but now is going to the graveyard in over the Brazilian chemical tanker Velma approaches her final destination after 30 years at sea captain has already given her standby over the years the Velma has been home for hundreds of sailors and it's an emotional farewell [Music] the night before her engines ceased as though she knew the end was near you develop a kind of human attachment almost you know sometimes with my machines don't work I literally talk to them and I tell them just one last time now I know I'm taking her on her last journey I'm taking a rain and I just look at it from the point of view like person who's giving off his organs you know I mean after death or something after you know when he's is given the permission and then a part of him lives and when someone else you know we believe so Indian philosophy of rebirth you know karma Raja three one two three one two not aboard yes yes sir hard a-port no with its keel scraping bottom the tanker drives hard towards a narrow lot a few feet from the workers on shore captain magic r has made a perfect beaching we are Beach fantastic mostly right on the beach nearly okay but you keep the engines ahead still got to let go the anchors okay now this once-proud vessel has become scrap today Alang is well known even infamous but two decades ago it was a pristine shore that few people had heard of first time I'd have come to along we came to the lighthouse and we must have walked five kilometres along this whole beach just to meet one fisherman our Seif khan was one of the founders of a line we're the first ship here in about June of 1983 and when she came here just at the lighthouse because there was only the lighthouses open Beach with the lighthouse so she came opposite along light and that's where literally then we had to put the plots in that here to start with plot number one right in front of the lighthouse there are 183 thoughts today thirty years ago shipbreaking was done from dry docks in Canada the United States and Europe before labor costs and environmental regulations shut it down in the 1980s Indian entrepreneurs seized the opportunity they didn't need expensive docks just a beach that they could drag the ships onto a Lange was perfect the high tides would carry even super tankers on shore and wedge them in the sand may you cannot chatter okay along ship breaking yard this remains of Sagada ldt commutable subsidy other cutting carnival is a breccia or gujarat me Joe will be Barnegat in lemon chicken a mullah monofin from inside yeah no problem Ilan's Ibrahim Yarmouth oh environment here or thusly labour key head some call it India's Gold Rush and migrant workers just keep coming up lured by a few dollars a day people like me tea would come here basically for the community moving here and this is a good good running wage compared to where he is from where there is absolutely no work in a way so this is a work that's accepted there and then they look forward to coming up because it's a prestigious job to be in along the first day I came to the shipyard I asked for work a man told me to separate the iron pieces and the non iron pieces with the help of a magnet for adult extremists luck to suicide the poem a Jessica Mike Haggar basic if not I'm just thinking the ship will feed too many plants at least 500 people will earn a living while the ship is broken down it can take six months for a ship to literally disappear all the way by hand bit by bit steel cables pull the vessel higher onshore if a cable snaps it can cut a man in half [Music] [Applause] on this beach the temperature rises to almost 50 degrees Celsius there are fires of a thousand torches and fumes from burning steel [Music] shipbreaking is a billion dollar a year industry and everyone wants a cut Western companies don't pay you to dispose of their ships cleanly instead they sell them for scrap the Indian buyers make a profit by reselling the steel with very few costs no benefits for their workers no social safety net [Music] [Applause] [Music] bethey bappa Morya this is Lord Ganesh this is our DT I place it on my ship and then I pray to the idol that you please guide me my ship and take it to a safe destination right now that I have brought her to the safe destination this is my last prayer to this DT and that's the end of my journey the Velma waits to be broken our electricity has been cut our lifeline is gone after a voyage of 30 years she seems frozen in time as though her crew just vanished leaving everything behind you feel bad but there's a stage in everybody's life where you have to it's called the end so it's the end for her was it yeah steel to steel dust to dust it's not in your blood to be a vessel you know but then you realize ultimately that what's necessary has to be done you see this vessel has served its useful purpose and it will the steel will get cut and perhaps go into the making of another vessel which will again start the whole cycle virtue leave the cycle of life all over again [Music] this tanker is the size of an apartment block 10 stories high challenging the men we'll break it down really where they got the money I thought they gave me their luck tada yeah I got addicted ever let that happen booty be with you that'll come Carnivora patil and his crew are gas cutters the elite of shipbreaking they are the first man to torch up inside the ship after the fuel lines are supposed to be cleared before them they must be put in you gotta have no one season up with them in Kanaka das a kuroh yatogami je veux pas la italiana but no holiday my senior cutters do have a very good knowledge of the ship itself he's you may know in a way of the whole organization that he knows exactly how a ship is built he's not had any force in naval architecture no is he who had any engineering course but this is a tradition he has learned from observation a sieve Khan was one of the only shipyard owners who would talk to us one of the few regarded as a good boss they're doing the worst possible thing you can do it to a ship they're not painting it we're not repairing it we're actually breaking it I did put your little down or you pallava tolerate all cut it it's a 40-foot drop and there is danger everywhere no plans to indicate which section to cut or how they will fall developing asthma DeMarcus deadly vapors can be trapped behind the steel [Music] gasps cutters literally follow their noses knowing each cut could set off an explosion in India this is the age of kali yuga the age of iron the age of darkness [Music] each day in a liang there are rituals and prayers for the shipbreakers at the hindu shrine of Kali ma [Music] she is their spiritual protector goddess of both birth and destruction she is an awesome force [Music] I will be my I will exhibit generally hey Portugal people girly [Music] like a Lang itself Kali ma is a paradox the man-eating destroyer who is also the giver of life [Music] [Music] I have six brothers I'm the youngest one of my brothers died here [Music] we are forced to do this work we have poor people what choices do we have [Music] my [Music] ah [Music] a certain as the tides that bring these ships to Alang it is a cycle of death and rebirth that forms the rhythm here [Music] this video accomodation a commode original a karateka flavio that we're a loose cable can be obtained or Wiesman our laundry cusamano possibly conical okay the men work on top and the women are don't buy rope they lower them and they bring them to the plot load them in the tractors and whichever dealers has bought it and goes to his party the woman's jobs only to carry this from the ship so instead of working about ten hours in the field in the heat this is a easier job so the women take this there is not so good it's 40 rupees per woman fifty rupees for Jen [Music] once known as the gypsum King this canadian-built ship offers up Western riches for a new market [Music] [Applause] there are no indigenous still manufacturing plant in this part of India so this is god-given gift to this region of our country and we can produce millions of tons of still [Applause] more than 300 ships having scrubbed every edge so that would be more than 50% of the total ships being scrapped all over the world this shipyard generates nearly 3 million tons of recycled steel each year and with it thousands more jobs are created in downstream industries [Music] [Music] [Music] when we first came here I think for joining villages they would have on maybe ten trucks within 10 kilometers of you today we have a thousand trucks and they all get employment that's a very good source of income for them [Music] this is plot number 111 I deal with these boats these are known as luxury liners and they have all the facilities in there with microphones and steering wheel and we get them from the ship breaking yard these are the engines we depend on the ships the mother ships come in a more profit we have over [Music] [Music] [Music] so many items are being resold for used numerously there are n numbers of items [Music] main street Alang they say you can find anything here and every kind of person [Music] like any boomtown that's become a magnet for the refuge for the dispossessed abandoned children and disappeared [Music] [Music] Sangams dream is to be with his little brother who works and sleeps in a shanty down the road Masuku the night scene you are well away jig or when acquit on Iran Iran isn't sweet a [ __ ] gonca under the Balkan that they say retire the people in my village things that they have seen her own world but it can leave the village they will realize that the world is so big from a lying to the nearest city Padma dar is a journey of 50 kilometers [Music] along the way there are signs of prosperity even in this place parched from drought [Music] far from the shipyards the money generated by Alang is a lifeline that feeds a million mouths [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] there are many downstream industries especially still the rolling mill oxygen plants steel plants scrap yards it is brought wealth to this area not only along people but the people all of the full area they have uplifted themselves due to Allah Industrial Revolution has come to the state of Gujarat courtesy of a lang for centuries this area existed on agriculture now farm boys feed a different beast único study the full process that actually what is happening over here we can see other countries of the world which are creating more problems than what we are doing Europe and we are not doing anything which is harming to any extent to the environment or to any other countries the harm is more insidious a blasting furnace melts chunks of metal at 1,300 degrees Celsius the air is acrid the fumes fill the lungs for every worker killed in shipyard accidents many more will die of this breathing the carbon names in these steel mills if a lung is affected to any extent in any manner then the there will be a collapse in the downstream industry they cannot survive the survival of these men is in peril too it is estimated one in four will get cancer [Music] Kali even at death you make the journey with us who dwell on the fierce cremation ground your fire consumes us [Music] [Applause] [Music] the state of Gujarat is the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi yet today it is less a symbol of peace than a rallying cry for reform the shipyards are a toxic wasteland reports of their horrors draw international attention that threatens to shut down the industry the ships being scrapped today were built in the 1970s before asbestos and PCBs were banned heavy metals were used in their paints some carried radioactive material these substances are released with every cut the sand the dust the air are full of it [Music] countries like Canada have banned the export of toxins under an international treaty called the Basel Accord but the murky sale of old ships slipped under the radar until 1998 when two journalists won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing it then Greenpeace scientists released a shocking report we found extremely high levels of all kinds of toxics if we would find these toxics in a west's it would require a cleanup of the sediment an average ship can easily have 20 tons of asbestos on board a ship 600 ships a year that would make 12 million kilo of asbestos being put on the beaches you don't need one kilo to get the damaging effect on your health that's the thing with toxic waste with hazardous waste in very minimum amounts they can have devastating effects to the health of people ship recycling is a eco-friendly only question is arising what had happen in old time asbestos was never considered hazardous permitted to use PCB was permitted to use heavy metal was permitted to use nobody say you don't do but due to change of the environmental system and the thinking of the people the things which were never considered hazardous in part is considered today as artists now the question is it is the existing in the ship so somebody has to handle it whether we end on it or somebody else handle it so there is no choice of it only wave is a question is how to better handle it other states association is faced with a dilemma if India enforces environmental laws third-world competitors who don't will take the business away and how can the West enforce such double standards when ship breaking was deemed too hazardous and expensive to do there in the first place so iPad maritime mobile embarrass attack Joey come Katherine - Roger legacy is urban se llaman co-produces veteran que VA vuitton key answer Amory button me police are saying is a tow hey raka maybe knocks on wood pneumoconiosis is a lung disease which happens in most industrial sector areas where there are lots of fumes gases which is being inhale constantly it is like smoking 10 to 15 packs of cigarettes a day all the time the shipyard owners pay this doctor his advice - the workers work upwind while doing the gas cutting he should remain in the opposite direction to the wind wind should just go away when there is lot of breeze on the sea side it will definitely harm less to him Alang has become a metaphor in the struggle between the third world and the first between the poor and the rich in boardrooms faraway solutions are pondered can ship break and become clean who will pay in this battle time is an enemy if ship breaking became eco-friendly today it would take decades for this environment to recover [Music] the shipyard siren marks the end of another grueling day [Music] meet whose uncle has worked in a Lang for 20 years his site is almost gone his feet are badly burned [Music] me too helps take care of him in the hut they've built of ship parts in the workers shanty town across the road from the beach [Music] there's no running water here no latrine just shacks built on a site that oozes contaminants from the beach [Music] cholera and polio leprosy old diseases meet modern ones like AIDS [Music] I'll go car over one city got a portable type other than that my uncle has become ill he has a high fever shop with jariabek are a lot of people here are see my brother died of a fever my parents are very worried about me [Music] another orphan has found refuge on Main Street [Music] this is Sangams little brother the boy whose mother was bitten by a snake - I love you Santos dreams of becoming a gas cutter someday - to do a Chinese sub good Inka gala the bonneville episode ah ah Cavalia correcting me I'm Lucas borrowed me canopy Nobunaga car dance [Music] to westernize this is a slum but people come because there is work money and a chance for a better life I come from the soil of my village see there's a big onion building I miss my family my mother the most [Music] to Merapi check either ghana origami rocks frankly on a plane i do not want to marry that would be too much tension I would have to earn more to feed another person I do not earn enough but up all that is a matter of two feet it's all in God's hands [Music] some put their faith in God some find solace in other places like the local bootleggers after working every day I must have money for my tiredness and my fitness to get rid of both of them to get rid of them how come you already Korean are you Tamara Thomas years [Music] [Music] my stomach - super calm connect Ilyich alter those call hundred percent Vonnegut's like that Bassam carisi Kulemin it's a everyday once it everyday one dead you silly a yaha get me - what the boham real fact minute nebith exact a lagoon cajas at rehearsal may come second pin so levels cadet along GPRS a procurement Nikita at the shipyards of Alang nothing ever stays the same it's a movable worksite [Music] the entrance and exit are different every day [Music] inside in the darkness it is impossible to know what iron chunk may fall for what staging area is safe [Music] as well the world over is concerned it's one of the most dangerous place as far as workplace or other traffic Spencer we want to eradicate that image totally most important is the death rate should become zero then we could feel okay we achieve something there's no hospital in a line the closest one is an hour away no one really keeps records but it's estimated that 8 and 10 men have been injured working here their bones crushed by steel plates or fractured from Falls some are blinded by torch sparks others are burned Mira could kiss a fever Nana epithelia the judge to put love Nathan Mira so how old are cut the oxygen up to wait till dinner Kira I say though Jerebko got my bottom degree ah de la perimeter la gotta do things in degree weather always coveted top super he marries at the near the Red Cross clinic in a Lang takes the simplest cases doctors travel here one day a week the clinic was initially started here in the Erlin it was having only a facility to see patients in the outdoor department there was no indoor facility since four years it has started indoor facility and since then we are coming here every week it is also common ailments a be personally accident to music okay okay [Music] all the laborers are very far away from their family so they are very depressed they are very stressed while in Alang most of the time the peoples are scarcity of low scarcity of caring and scarcity of money so these three factors they are crucial in treating patients at this particular space there is no Union in allowing some workers have tried to organize one but most are too afraid to be a carotid when a particle Appa [Music] in the end it's always about money the shipyard owners say they are hurting the shifting price of steel and currency exchange can cut profits fast competition from other poor countries has raised the price of these ships and the interest on the loans they take to buy them can be crippling so the untrained workers are pushed to work harder faster [Music] he's hefty gilja with shandricka company some neurological Atrato school botanical Viacom Goliath or a disco hysterical a girifna Narnia [Music] basically you got near the tilde that of untoward a missile arrived Dylan is atop the communique longer I suppose Bharata [Applause] Otto part of the legal team easily through it now appeared on page four tell Oliver Lucky Ali led to the Bulova legaia was he poor for I'll agree I was copper i Holly pierogi initially macadam care of Tanis o arch artisanal skipper I do Capra Ganesha bottom Mitchell aye iya Akira spoon ecological MSA or pin Maruti me later bhagavad to voltaic in a a certain Kanika subsidiary saddle pure ajaja danger vodka can be dangerous we sadirah gyro no he said subsidy a danger to people gotta give a pipeline wha he come each other danger Co to work like it like corny huh [ __ ] Kamata will be dangerous [Music] work has just begun on a tanker called in Ville when a gas cutter spark hits an uncleared gas line so I said my America kulhanek bulaga camara de la Paz number Mucca Mucca tada oh my God look at how the gel guy from Africa autoharp a both built ax undertook a she was Johnny need the Allah so Allah gave I knew the Himalaya get my jacket Iike tomorrow's law system you could a lot more per channel like Nathan respect that participation via the EF not me financial number may cheered me margarita or couch of pants loco Giada Jack me with his Cabana Hospital Medical party kieta to Escobar named putana Nikki's koshevoy the Japanese official World Cup dear love liver suffice academically don't evaluated idea it matter did not finish about Nadia [Music] [Music] [Music] go [Music] six men were killed in the tanker in ville [Music] but officials barred access to the shipyard [Music] there was no sign of the wounded at the hospital in Bhavnagar It was as though nothing had happened [Music] just rumors [Music] I have seen it all being done I have seen people getting drowned and the body goes in the sea we bothered nobody there were certain people who are brought out in pieces so then they make out by their shirts then we know [Music] I will not give up my life for my employee [Music] [Music] [Music] I feel guilty working not studying [Music] I don't know what happened to me [Music] I got got here [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] my parents have already lost one son to Alon when I telephone them they asked me about my health they asked me to return but I refused [Music] days after the envelope Splosion an american norwegian consortium pledged to deliver clean ships to prevent future accidents there is no stopping the international scrutiny that now comes with toxic ships and this one's a real prize the name is tulip Olivia they're only 8,000 tons the tulip is really a Norwegian ship called the GERD Greenpeace put her on their most toxic list before she disappeared she was sold to Libya then resold several times she flies a bogus flag the ocean is full of ships like her phantom ships whose first world owners claim no responsibility you can't allow the ship owners to run away there has to brought to the regulation and that should be the system what we are now asking in the volge scenario when you are stalking for the regulation for the volge ship recycling you have to make a regulation for the ship owners also you cannot be one sided one Cape in the coming years the number of ships to be broken will double yet export of toxic waste is against international law we see that the world deals with double standards Western countries are happy to send data toxic waste to poor countries but at the same time don't want to accept don't want these toxic wastes in their own countries because they are what you want to protect their people in the environment which is good but they should not I think we cannot allow this double standard to to exist for longer disposing of the world's toxic ships should be considered a service to the world it should not be the ship breakers who pay the price thank you once again excellent job and I wish you a very good vacation Jovana yoga equipment - Savannah yoga JavaScript with panty Mitchell negatory a voltage it never is Salma Club a panty Michelle's actor when JEB busca carnival act 800 la valle de cos I got my eviscerate muchacha [Music] [Music] misuk tarabuco salad era Sammy Kaliyuga Camtasia sitter - Oh Zahraa Wiscasset a sub s age of data riga acetylene [Music] is a big Macau [Music] da-da-da-da-da-da-da my dad my moon god oh god honey [Music] Oh Callie your sword annihilates demons it makes the ocean more your darkness is the beauty our birth and death are yours [Music] epidemic illegal take a dump [Music] [Music] the limit is up with Nana the buskin bangy have to come tonight now accountant I get out of a logarithm now today SuperDuper zero the firmware Omata Govinda well Daphne I might've been the lagana name is Sam to get down at Alina [Music] [Music] [Music] I don't want to be here forever I would love to travel and see the world I would love to sail away for now the site of the ships fills my heart with happiness it's Dharma the ship dies so we can survive [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay and [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: NFB

Views: 3,132,930

Rating: 4.7144361 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 5jdEG_ACXLw

Length: 72min 51sec (4371 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/dmacrolensystematica]

Yes, I will.

[u/charliegrs]

The beach area where they break down these ships is so FUCKING POLLUTED from it. The water looks like straight up oil. I checked it on Google maps, and it's like a few miles of brown water before it becomes blue. This is what a lack of regulations looks like.

[u/RAMbo-AF]

Seen it twice. I applaud these people and their dangerous life threatening jobs.

[u/TheB333]

Thank you! I’ve been looking for a documantary like this for long ! I’m wondering what shipbreakers look nowadays, more than a decade after this.

[u/Kens_Bone]

There's a few of these docs on youtube. RT did a good one.

https://youtu.be/a4cVGWTzKo8

You really have won the lottery of life being born in the west.

[u/lifegivingcoffee]

Nothing like wealthy men explaining how it has to be this way.

[u/morbidru]

but what if this is my job?

[u/radome9]

A great doc.

One minor quibble: they say that "it is estimated one in four will get cancer" - sounds dramatic, but isn't. Cancer rates for men is around one in three - worse than for the shipbreakers.

[u/AvailableTrust0]

This is the exact reason to complain about your job.

Capitalists and corporatists will never stop taking advantage of workers.