A few days ago three labourers were killed while working in the Gadani ship-breaking yard on the Balochistan coast. Several labourers were working in the ship-breaking yard, about 50 kilometres northwest of Karachi, when heavy iron rubble from a ship’s deck fell on them, killing three of them on the spot and injuring several others. The labourers were immediately shifted to Karachi.
Gadani ship-breaking yard is one of the world’s largest ship breaking operations where ship breaking has been taking place since before Pakistan’s independence. Thousands of local labourers work in unsafe conditions, often for a pittance.
With annual capacity of breaking over a hundred ships of all sizes, the yard is located on a 10 km stretch of beach at Gadani, 50 kilometres from Karachi city. Fires and accidents are common in the ship-breaking yard where workers extract metals, steel pipes and valves, electricity cables, machinery and wood from derelict ships.
Sources: Pakistan Today, Ship Recycling
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