#ship breaking yard

[minowly]

photo by Steve McCurry,

Ship Breaking Yard, Karachi, Pakistan, 1985

[atlasobscura]

Chittagong Ship-Breaking Yards - Bhatiari, Bangladesh

Supertankers and giant cargo ships are the backbone of our global consumer society. Hundreds of meters long, ferrying millions of tons of goods across the globe, the sheer size of these immense vessels is awe inspiring. Construction of one such behemoth is a fascinating feat of engineering. However, the destruction and final resting place of these steel giants is even more intriguing.

Even when such a ship is not seaworthy anymore, and repairs are not economically viable, the raw material it is constructed from has some value. Nowadays ship-breaking yards tend to be located in third world countries, places far out of sight of the consumers whose supermarkets they helped supply, and where labor is cheap and environmental protection laws are lax.

There ships are chipped down bit by bit, usually by hand, and stripped of every last bit of value. Fauzdarhat, 20 kilometers northwest of Chittagong in Bangladesh, is where many of the world's ships go to die.

Visit the Chittagong Ship-breaking Yards on Atlas Obscura…