Salon.com > Shipbreaking http://www.salon.com Sun, 19 May 2013 17:31:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Shipbreaking: World’s most dangerous job? http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/shipbreaking_worlds_most_dangerous_job_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/shipbreaking_worlds_most_dangerous_job_partner/#comments Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:37:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13248012 Global Post GADDANI, Pakistan — Gaddani is a three-dimensional maze of hazards, as chaotic as a major industrial site can get. Steel, in all its forms, assaults the senses. The shrieking of metal saws is punctuated by the ferocious, unnerving thump of massive slabs falling to the sand. And the whole place smells of a four-car pileup. Which is essentially what it is.

No, this massive beach here in Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province is not your typical sandy shoreline.

It’s one of a handful of “shipbreaking” sites across South Asia.

Looming above the flat sand are beached ocean liners, cargo ships and oil tankers that once brought goods to markets in the US and elsewhere around the world. They once bore the flags of the world’s great shipping hubs: Greece, Norway and the UK, but when they arrive at this ignoble resting ground they fly flags of convenience — Panama, Liberia and Bahamas — to launder them from what is about to happen.

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