The world’s top ship graveyards

Beaches at Alang in India, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Gadani in Pakistan and Aliaga in Turkey aren’t top holiday destinations - they’re the world’s top ship graveyards, according to an All Voices report. After a lifespan of a few decades and hard use, a worn down ship will make its last trip to one of these beaches in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Turkey. It’ll be demolished and broken for lucrative recycling. A ship may not be seaworthy anymore but it’s definitely a few million dollars worthy as scrap metal. No trained workers and no advanced tools will be used to take the ship down. Low-labour-cost local people, very often children, will use blowtorches, hammers and axes to tear down a ship that, on average, is 1 180 feet (360-metres) long and weighs 160-metric tonnes. Very often, they won’t wear protective gear and will inhale dangerous vapours and fumes from materials including asbestos polychlorinated biphenyls. BBC’s Simon Reeve reported from the world’s second biggest ship-breaking (or demolition) yard in Bangladesh that, on average, eight people die there every month - crushed under heavy metal falling on top of them or suffocated inside a gas chamber.