Death of giant tanker brings jobs and risks

By DAVID BRUNNSTROM

GADDANI, Pakistan - Like a gigantic steel whale 10 storeys high and longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, the second-biggest ship built awaits destruction on what could be a beautiful Arabian Sea beach.

The new Pakistani owners of the 555,000-tonne ultra-large crude carrier Sea Giant are elated, and say their biggest shipbreaking project, snatched from under the noses of Chinese rivals, will revitalise their industry and create hundreds of jobs.

But fishermen and environmentalists are incensed by the beaching of Sea Giant at Pakistan's shipbreaking centre of Gaddani.

They see it as another example of rich Western business taking advantage of lax Third World standards to dispose of a messy problem on the cheap.

The French-built ship, which used to carry half a million tonnes of crude to the United States from Saudi Arabia, arrived a few weeks after the Greek-owned tanker Tasman Spirit was wrecked off Karachi, 50km away.

The Government is seeking $1 billion in damages for the oil pollution that disaster caused, but has given incentives to help bring the Sea Giant to Gaddani.

Greenpeace is campaigning to raise shipbreaking standards, saying that as practised in Third World countries such as Pakistan hazardous pollutants are released into the environment and workers endangered.

It says there is no coincidence that the world leaders in shipbreaking are states with some of the lowest environmental standards and the cheapest and least-protected labour - Bangladesh, Pakistan, China and India.

Worker safety is clearly not the top priority at Gaddani.

Despite all the hazards of working at height and winching heavy metal plates and huge sections of boiler pipe large enough to accommodate or crush 10 men, the yards appear to observe few safety precautions.

No workers were seen wearing hard hats, not even men winched 35 metres from the beach to the Sea Giant's bow on a precariously suspended wooden palette.

Workers recalled nine men dying in another Gaddani yard when a similar winch cable snapped.

The rewards for the risks are poor - 60 rupees (about $1.70) a day for unskilled labourers and 200 rupees ($5.80) for workers using oxyacetylene torches to cut up tankers.

"It is a tough job, but we are poor people, we have no other choice," said labourer Jan Bacha.

Shahid Patel, sales manager of Usman Enterprises, which bought Sea Giant for scrap for US$25.5 million ($42.6 million), says the work is difficult, but his yard has the expertise.

He said the company won the contract thanks to Government incentives, including a reduction in duties from 21 to 14 per cent, and a slashing of income tax from 6 to 3 per cent.

Patel rejects Greenpeace's concerns, saying shipbreaking poses no threat to the beach, sea, or workers.

He said ships, including the Sea Giant, were cleaned before arrival and certified free of hazardous gases and residual oil.

But fishermen a few kilometres away laugh at the suggestion that the yards care about the environment.

They say oil and chemicals from the ships have forced them further offshore in search of fish and have caused stomach, eye and respiratory ailments in their community.

- REUTERS