This young state is considered one of the most multinational in the world. An exotic country, whose name translates as "land of the Bengalis", is not very popular among tourists. There are no entertainment centers and fashionable resorts with luxurious beaches.
Travelers who are interested in original culture and want to get acquainted with ancient architectural monuments, many of which are protected by UNESCO, come here. However, there are also places closed to strangers that cause real horror among Europeans.
Convenient place for ship recycling
Bangladesh (on a map it can be found in South Asia, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, east of India) is a very poor country with high levels of unemployment and poverty. It is no coincidence that it was here that the world's largest ship recycling center appeared, because the region has an abundance of cheap labor and there are no labor protection requirements.
In addition, wide beaches with a gentle slope extending into the Indian Ocean contribute to the chosen method of dismantling ships. And high tides only simplify the "throwing" of metal parts onto the shore.
The real branch of hell
A ship graveyard in Bangladesh (coordinates: 22 ° 20.304 ′ N, 91 ° 49.9008 ′ E) is located in Chittagong, the second largest city in the state. In just a few years, the coast has overgrown with numerous sites for ship separation. On narrow stripes of land in just a couple of months, ships are destroyed, from which nothing remains.
This is a terrible place where tragedies happen every month. Local residents work without days off, holidays, medical insurance, and do not give a damn about safety measures. And they do it almost for nothing. Workers die in explosions, burn alive alive in a fire, suffocate from accumulated gases. And no one keeps official mortality statistics.
Work in unbearable conditions
All disassembling of ships ending their lives in South Asia takes place in the most primitive way: at high tide, a victim sentenced to "death" is thrown onto the cutting strip of a ship cemetery in Bangladesh, growing tightly into the sand. Then the recycling begins: the workers climb aboard the ships and take off all the equipment, and the remnants of the technical fluids merge from the fuel tanks. Locals armed with autogenes cut steel sheets of ships. They manually dismantle ship hulls using sledgehammers and blowtorches. The metal parts are recycled, and the removed equipment is put in order and used again.
More than 35 thousand people work at the shipyard, and 20% of them are children under 14 who are engaged in grueling physical labor. They are the lowest paid workers who receive only a dollar a day.
The work day starts at seven in the morning and ends closer to midnight. Employers ignore the rule that prohibits nightly recycling.
An industry bringing fabulous profits to its owners
Shipowners get rid of ships that have worked for more than 30 years, making profit from it. Also, owners of companies that deal with decommissioned ships make huge fortunes, because the ship cemetery in Chittagong is considered the largest steel supplier in the country. They made the destruction of bulk carriers, liners and tankers a separate business.
Daily growing "city"
Locals who cannot find another job and take on this from hopeless poverty settle in shacks near the ship graveyard in Bangladesh. Their dwellings stretch for ten kilometers inland, and the area of a kind of "city" is already about 120 km 2 . Cripples injured in accidents live in the settlements.
For these people, every day may be the last, but the unfortunate have no alternatives.
One of the most closed places for tourists
Travelers are not liked here, and an ordinary person rarely manages to visit the ship cemetery in Bangladesh. Thrill lovers should be extremely careful: strangers are definitely not welcome here. And without escort of the owners of the shipyard, getting inside is almost impossible. And if someone sees a camera in the hands of a stranger, it will not be possible to avoid trouble, because the truth about the closed zone negatively affects the image of the country and its authorities.
A business that threatens a man-made disaster for the world
The health of locals working in a ship cemetery in Bangladesh without any means of protection and risking their lives daily is irreparable. Prolonged exposure to heavy metals leads to cancer.
In conditions when no one thinks about a person and his health, they just forget about the environment. The main problem that worries all sane people is environmental pollution. The fact is that the disposal of marine vessels leads to the formation of a large amount of hazardous waste that contains asbestos, lead, glass wool. They fall into coastal water, poisoning it and the land. And during strong tides, huge chunks of steel and sand soaked with toxic waste are carried into the ocean.
Although, according to the rules, all harmful substances must be sorted on the spot, and then they should be disposed of accordingly. But the owners of ship recycling firms considered the Indian Ocean to be the best place to destroy them. Currently, both coastal waters and beaches that have absorbed engine oil and fuel are a real area of environmental disaster.