Travel notes. Fifth day, ship graveyard

It turns out this place is not the only one.

Like everything made by man, from cars and trucks to airplanes and locomotives, ships have a lifespan, and when that time is up, they are scrapped. Such large hulks, of course, contain a lot of metal, and it is extremely cost-effective to gut them and recycle the metal. Welcome to Chittagong (Chittagong)- one of the world's largest ship scrapping centers. Up to 200,000 people worked here at the same time.

Chittagong accounts for half of all steel produced in Bangladesh.

After World War II, shipbuilding began to experience an unprecedented boom, with a huge number of metal ships being built around the world and more and more in developing countries. However, the question of disposing of spent ships soon arose. It turned out to be more economical and profitable to dismantle old ships for scrap in poor developing countries, where tens of thousands of low-paid workers dismantled old ships several times cheaper than in Europe.

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In addition, factors such as strict health and environmental protection requirements and expensive insurance played an important role. All this made scrapping ships in developed European countries unprofitable. Here such activities are limited mainly to the dismantling of military vessels.

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Recycling of old ships in developed countries is currently extremely high also due to the high cost: the cost of disposal of toxic substances such as asbestos, PCBs and those containing lead and mercury is often higher than the cost of scrap metal.

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The development of the ship recycling center in Chittagong dates back to 1960, when the Greek ship MD-Alpine was washed up on the sandy coast of Chittagong after a storm. Five years later, after several unsuccessful attempts to re-refloat the MD Alpine, it was decommissioned. Then local residents began disassembling it for scrap metal.

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By the mid-1990s, a large-scale ship scrapping center had developed in Chittagong. This was also due to the fact that in Bangladesh, when dismantling ships, the cost of scrap metal is higher than in any other country.

However, working conditions at ship dismantling were terrible. Here, one worker died every week due to occupational safety violations. Child labor was used mercilessly.

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Ultimately, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh imposed minimum safety standards and also banned all activities that did not meet these conditions.

As a result, the number of jobs decreased, the cost of work increased and the ship recycling boom in Chittagong began to decline.

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About 50% of the world's scrapped ships are recycled in Chittagong, Bangladesh. 3-5 ships come here weekly. About 80 thousand people directly dismantle the ships themselves, and another 300 thousand work in related industries. The daily wage of workers is 1.5-3 dollars (with a working week of 6 days of 12-14 hours), and Chittagong itself is considered one of the dirtiest places in the world.

Decommissioned ships began arriving here in 1969. By now, 180-250 ships are dismantled in Chittagong every year. The coastal strip, where ships find their final refuge, stretches for 20 kilometers.

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Their disposal occurs in the most primitive way - using an autogen and manual labor. Of the 80 thousand local workers, approximately 10 thousand are children from 10 to 14 years old. They are the lowest paid workers, receiving an average of $1.5 per day.

Every year, about 50 people die during ship dismantling, and about 300-400 more become crippled.

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80% of this business is controlled by American, German and Scandinavian companies - the scrap metal is then sent to these same countries. In monetary terms, the dismantling of ships in Chittagong is estimated at 1-1.2 billion dollars a year; in Bangladesh, 250-300 million dollars remain from this amount in the form of salaries, taxes and bribes to local officials.

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Chittagong is one of the dirtiest places in the world. When dismantling ships, engine oils are drained directly onto the shore, where lead waste remains - for example, the maximum permissible concentration for lead here is exceeded by 320 times, the maximum permissible concentration for asbestos is 120 times.

The shacks where workers and their families live stretch 8-10 km inland. The area of this “city” is about 120 square kilometers, and up to 1.5 million people live in it.

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The port city of Chittagong lies 264 km southeast of Dhaka, approximately 19 km from the mouth of the Karnaphuli River.

It is the second largest population center in Bangladesh and its most famous tourist center. The reason for this is the city’s favorable location between the sea and the mountainous regions, a good sea coast with an abundance of islands and shoals, a large number of ancient monasteries of several cultures, as well as many distinctive hill tribes inhabiting the areas of the famous Chittagong Hills. And the city itself during its history (and it was founded approximately at the turn of the new era) has experienced many interesting and dramatic events, therefore it is famous for its characteristic mixture of architectural styles and different cultures.

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The main decoration of Chittagong is the old district lying along the northern bank of the river Sadarghat. Born along with the city itself somewhere at the turn of the millennium, it has been inhabited since ancient times by wealthy merchants and ship captains, so with the arrival of the Portuguese, who for almost four centuries controlled all trade on the western coast of the Malay Peninsula, the Portuguese enclave of Paterghatta also grew here, built up rich for those times villas and mansions. By the way, this is one of the few areas in the country that has still preserved Christianity.

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Nowadays, in the old part of the city, the fortress-like Shahi-Jama-e-Masjid mosque (1666), the Quadam Mubarak (1719) and Chandanpura mosques (XVII-XVIII centuries), the shrines of Dargah Sakh Amanat and Bayazid Bostami in the heart of the city (there is a large pool with hundreds of turtles, believed to be the descendants of an evil genie), the Bada Shah mausoleum, the magnificent 17th-century court complex on Fairy Hill, and many old mansions of all styles and sizes. Many of them are far from being in the best condition, but by and large this only adds flavor to them. Also worth a visit is the Ethnological Museum in the modern district of Modern City, which has interesting exhibitions telling about the tribes and peoples of Bangladesh, the Memorial Cemetery for Victims of the Second World War, the picturesque Foy Reservoir (approximately 8 km from the city center, locals call it a lake, although it formed during the construction of a railway dam in 1924), as well as Patenga Beach.

Beautiful views of the city from the hills Fairy Hill and the British City area. In addition, here, which is important in conditions of constant local heat, cool sea breezes constantly blow, which makes the area a popular place of residence for wealthy residents of the city. However, most tourists stay in the city literally for one day, since the main point of attraction is the hilly areas east of Chittagong.

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The Chittagong Hills region comprises a large area (an area of about 13,191 sq. km) of forested hills, picturesque gorges and cliffs, overgrown with dense jungle cover, bamboo, vines and wild grapes, and inhabited by hill tribes with their own distinctive culture and way of life. This is one of the rainiest areas of South Asia - up to 2900 mm of precipitation falls here annually, and this is with an average annual air temperature of about +26 C! The region includes four main valleys formed by the Karnaphuli, Feni, Shangu and Matamukhur rivers (however, each river here has two or three names). This is an atypical region of Bangladesh in terms of topography and culture, where mainly Buddhist tribes live and the population density is relatively low, which has allowed the natural environment of the region to be preserved in a relatively untouched state.

Oddly enough, the Chittagong Hills is the most restive region in the country and therefore visits to many areas are limited (without special permits valid for 10-14 days, you can only visit the Rangamati and Kaptai areas).

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Here's what they write about working conditions in this place:

“...Using only blowtorches, sledgehammers and wedges, they cut out huge pieces of sheathing. After these fragments collapse like glacier calving, they are dragged ashore and cut into small pieces weighing hundreds of pounds. They are carried onto trucks by teams of workers singing rhythmic songs, as carrying the very heavy, thick steel plates requires perfect coordination. The metal will be sold at a huge profit for the owners who live in luxurious mansions in the city. ...The cutting of the ship continues from 7:00 to 23:00 by one team of workers with two half-hour breaks, and an hour for breakfast (they have dinner after returning home at 23:00). Total - 14 hours a day, 6-1/2 day work week (half a day on Friday free, according to Islamic requirements). Workers are paid $1.25 per day."

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Dismantling of old ships for scrap in Chittagong (Bangladesh).

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The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -

Unfortunately, we were in a hurry to Murmansk to spend the night, refuel and go to Tumanny the next day. Therefore, we had very little time to explore the port.

Teriberka used to be a major fishing center.
The decline in the village began in the 60s, when the area was moved to Severomorsk. Large-capacity vessels appeared, fleets went to the ocean, coastal fishing lost its importance, fish processing, due to the development of a fishing port and a fish processing plant in the city of Murmansk, came to naught.
Another reason for the critical state of the fishing industry is that there is no registration point for fishing vessel calls in the village. So it turns out that in order to deliver fish to Teriberka, you must first register the cargo in Murmansk. Not everyone agrees to transport raw materials to the village. Expensive.
As a result, the local fish processing plant is facing difficult times.

1. I’ll say right away that there is an active port in Teriberka

2. But, firstly, it was of no interest from the point of view of photography, and, secondly, it was protected

3. So we'll look at the abandoned part of it

4. Abandoned port buildings

For local residents, fishing is essentially impossible. It is strangled by quotas and other administrative prohibitions.

10. It is now forbidden to catch many animals here; they say buy the right and fish to your heart’s content.

11. Fishing in this area has always been the main activity and people are not used to the fact that they still have to pay someone something for it. Yes, even if they wanted to buy such rights, they could not afford it

12. At the same time, for some reason, illegal fishing is monitored by border guards, not fisheries inspection

14. There are rumors about some kind of fishing development program together with the Norwegians, but in reality the village is slowly dying. And it is unlikely that this program would directly help local

17. Old ships are gradually rotting idle

20. I read somewhere that all these ships were built almost at the beginning of the 20th century. But I won't say

Have you ever wondered what happens to ships that have reached the end of their life? For their disposal, special man-made ship cemeteries are created. They can be dry docks where ships containing asbestos and other materials that can have harmful effects on the environment are stored.

Man-made ship graveyards can also be created at sea, where old ships are left to decay or dismantled into their component parts. But, undoubtedly, the most interesting are not these artificially created resting places, but the ship cemeteries that arose spontaneously.

Insidious Atlantic

During the existence of navigation, the Atlantic became the last refuge for millions of ships created in different eras. Typically, ship cemeteries appear at the intersection of sea routes, where brave seafarers are kept in wait by treacherous reefs, wandering sands, and uncharted rocks. So, not far from Dover there is a place where the terrain constantly changes its shape, posing a real threat to sailors even today. What can we say about those sailors who did not know modern instruments? There is a cemetery near Dover where, according to historians, hundreds of “floating vessels” and more than 50 thousand people who lived in different historical times rest. Having drilled the bottom to a depth of 15 meters, scientists discovered that the entire core taken consisted of the remains of ship hulls, wood, and iron. The Goodwin shoals are thoroughly saturated with ship decay.

It is not for nothing that today this terrible place is called the “Great Ship Devourer”. There are many such places. There are ship cemeteries in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, Fiji and hundreds of other places. In some of them, triremes created in ancient times are under a thick layer of remains of medieval caravels, frigates of the New Age and modern ships that have disappeared in our time. Why do such graveyards arise?

The causes of ship cemeteries can be:

Storms that sailing ships could not resist.
Fogs, which were almost impossible to navigate without special equipment.
Strong currents that ships could not withstand. Brought to the reefs, they remained there forever if they were not removed during high tide.

The most famous ship graveyards

In addition to the “Great Ship Eater,” there are other places where sunken ships have accumulated for centuries (photo). The ship graveyard in Taranto (Italy) is quite famous, where among 16 ships lies one that has received particular fame due to its cargo. The ship was carrying coins, marble and tamarisk sarcophagi. The interesting thing is that after centuries the cargo is still in good condition. Among modern cemeteries, a fairly large one is located in Mauritania. After nationalization, many fishing and transport vessels were simply abandoned by their owners. They are still rotting near the shore. There is such a place in Russia, in the Aral Sea. There, as a result of an environmental disaster, hundreds of ships are destroyed in the middle of the desert, which until recently was The largest ship cemetery is in Pakistan. Huge tankers and luxury cruise ships are cut into small pieces and disposed of here.

Humanity learned to build ships at the same time when the first states arose - in the 3rd millennium BC. The history of shipbuilding goes back about 4,000 years, and for the same number of years, sunken ships have found their last berth at the bottom of the seas and oceans. Historians claim that from the 10th century BC. and until the middle of the twentieth century AD. At least 3 million ships sank.

Before the invention of the steam engine, more than half of the ships crashed and sank within 1-2 years after the start of operation. Rowing and sailing ships were lost both in sea battles and in storms, and more often than not disasters occurred due to strong winds and storms. In the 19th century, when sailing ships were replaced by steamships in the fleets of maritime powers, and people learned to predict the weather, the number of shipwrecks decreased.

Two world wars in the twentieth century added thousands of sunken ships to the list - combat and auxiliary ships, cargo and cargo-passenger liners and submarines. In isolated cases, sunken ships were raised to the surface of the water and towed to the port.

Most of the lost ships remained forever under the water column. Over the course of 4 thousand years, cemeteries of sunken ships have formed in the world's oceans - areas of the bottom where hundreds of ships that were wrecked in different centuries lie.

Ancient Roman galleys, English frigates, pirate galleons, American ships and Soviet warships coexist in the underwater cemeteries. There are countless places like this on shipping routes; explorers of the deep sea regularly find new sunken ships. We will tell you about the 7 largest cemeteries of sunken ships that are known today.

1. Caribbean Sea, Greater Antilles region

Shipping routes through the Caribbean Sea were established after the discovery of America, because through it lies the shortest route from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic ports. Trade, military and passenger ships have regularly passed by the Greater Antilles for 500 years.

But the weather in the Caribbean Sea is changeable; there are strong storms 8-12 times a year that can carry large and medium-sized sailing ships to the bottom. And pirates in the 16th-19th centuries considered this sea an excellent place to profit from gold and goods from merchant ships.

During the Gold Rush era, a route ran through the Caribbean Sea along which jewelry from Novaya Zemlya was delivered to Spain and Portugal. And it is natural that hundreds of frigates and galleons transporting gold were attacked by pirates.

The exact number of ships lying on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea has not been established. Researchers claim that between 1,000 and 3,000 ships were sunk there, at least 450 of which were Spanish sailing ships that were lost between 1500 and 1800.

To date, a maximum of 20% of shipwrecks in the Caribbean Sea have been explored. And the most famous of them are:

The Spanish sailing ship San Antonio, carrying gold and jewelry, was lost during a storm in the fall of 1621.
The Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion, which sank in 1641 with tons of gold and jewelry on board.
The English frigate "Winchester" with 60 heavy guns (cannons), wrecked in 1695.
10 galleons of the Spanish “Silver Fleet”, sunk in 1715 during a strong hurricane.
The Spanish galleon Rui, which was lost during a storm in 1733.

According to treasure hunters, the Caribbean Sea is not only a large cemetery of sunken ships, but also a treasury with untold riches. In the holds of Spanish and English sailing ships resting at the bottom lie hundreds of tons of gold and jewelry.

2. Pacific coast of Micronesia, region of the islands of Chuuk state

In the Pacific Ocean near the islands of the state of Chuuk, a cemetery for warships is hidden under the water. It contains ships that were considered the pride of the Japanese Pacific Fleet. According to the plan of the Japanese government, with the help of these ships, first Micronesia and New Guinea, and then Australia, were to be captured. But fate decreed otherwise.

In 1944, a large naval base was located in Japanese-occupied Micronesia, where more than 100 ships of the 4th Imperial Navy were located. During Operation Hillston, carried out by the US Navy on February 17, 1944, the base was destroyed and Japanese ships scuttled.

Divers estimate that 60 large and 100 small Japanese warships sunk by American forces rest in the Chuuk Island area. In addition to ships, Japanese Air Force aircraft also lie in this cemetery - at least 275 fighters.

This graveyard of shipwrecks is popular with divers and World War II explorers. But even today it is not safe to sail there - unexploded bombs remained on the dead ships.

3. Coral Sea, Great Barrier Reef area

The ship graveyard in the Coral Sea off the coast of Australia is no less than in the Caribbean Sea. The main reason for the death of ships here was the coral reefs, which the ships stumbled upon during storms and fogs.

This cemetery was formed during the era of colonization of Australia by the British Empire - in the 18th-19th centuries. And 60% of the ships lying at the bottom of the Coral Sea once sailed under the British flag and transported goods, precious metals and colonial families.

Sunken ships near the Great Barrier Reef were discovered at the end of the 20th century. To date, less than 10% of the vessels lying on the underwater coral reefs of the Coral Sea have been explored. And the most famous were the following found ships:

The English military frigate Pandora, which sank due to a collision with a reef in 1791.
The brig Swiftsure (formerly L'Inconstant, on which Napoleon Bonaparte left the island of Elba in 1815), ran into a reef and sank to the bottom in 1829.
The 109-meter passenger liner Yongala, which sank in a storm in 1911.

4. Atlantic coast near Sable Island

The floating Sable Island was called the “ship devourer” by medieval sailors. The last berth of 400 passenger and merchant ships was found near it. According to the observations of Canadian lighthouse keepers on the island in the 19th century, an average of 2 ships sank here per year. And in the 17th-18th centuries, disasters happened more often - sailing ships could not withstand storms, and they ran aground.

There are two reasons for the mass loss of sailing ships and steamships near Sable: changeable weather and shifting sands hidden under water. As the cold Labrador Current collides with the warm Gulf Steere, the weather is constantly changing, and a light tailwind can turn into a hurricane in a matter of minutes. And the bottom near Sable is uneven and covered with sands, into which, within 2-3 days, ships driven aground by the wind were completely sucked.

Of the hundreds of ships that ran aground near Sable and perished in the quicksand, the most famous are:

The English ship "Francis", which carried the belongings of the Duke of York and died at the end of the 18th century.
The English ship Princess Amalia, which sank in 1801.
The passenger steamer State of Virginia, which sank in 1879.
The French steamer La Bourgogne, which sank in the summer of 1898.
The steamship Crafton Hall, which ran aground and was swallowed up by the sands in the spring of 1898.

5. Bay of Biscay, closer to the Spanish coast

The picturesque Bay of Biscay, stretching between the Spanish and French coasts, is considered cursed by sailors. Due to the turbulent undercurrents and changeable weather in the bay, more than 200 Spanish, Turkish, French and English merchant ships perished. Military frigates sunk during the Anglo-French wars are also buried here.

The Bay of Biscay Ship Graveyard has been collecting for centuries, and there are significant treasures and historical sites hidden beneath the waters.

For example, from one ship it was possible to bring to the surface rare wines made in the 16th century. The cost of a bottle of wine that had been underwater for 400 years reached a price of 2,000 British pounds at auction.

6. English Channel, near the coast of Deal

In the English Channel, 10 km from the British city of Deal, there is the notorious Goodwin Shoal, a place where 2,000 ships sank between 1600 and 1991. The cause of the death of most of them was shifting sands, breaking and pulling in ships that were “lucky enough” to run aground.

The insidiousness of this section of the English Channel is that the location of the shoals is constantly changing and it is impossible to predict which place ships need to avoid. Under the influence of tides, the sands shift, and the captains of sailing ships, passing the Goodwin Shoal, relied solely on luck.

Luck did not smile on everyone, and ships loaded with goods, gold and jewelry regularly sank under water. The crews and passengers of sinking ships were not always able to escape - according to researchers, 50,000 people died here.

Of the 2,000 ships buried under the English Channel, the most famous are:

The English warship Styling Castle, which was lost in a storm in 1703
The 50-gun English frigate Marie, which sank in 1703
The steamship "Violet", which sank with its crew in 1857
The steamship Mahatta, which ran aground and broke into two parts in 1909
Ocean liner Montrose, wrecked in 1914
The cargo ship Prospector, which was lost due to a collision with the cruise ship Chusan in 1953.

7. Aegean Sea, area of the Greek island of Fourni

Archaeologists found a ship cemetery in the Aegean Sea in the 21st century. They were amazed by the number and variety of ships resting here at the bottom. In 2015 and 2016, 55 ships were examined, and this is only a small part of the underwater graveyard. The oldest ship found here is a rowing galley built in the 6th century BC, and the newest is a steamship that sank at the beginning of the 19th century.

The reason for the death of ships in the Aegean Sea was the rocky shores of the bays, in which sailing ships hid from the north wind and began to drift. If the wind direction suddenly changed and a hurricane began, the ships in the bays were smashed against the coastal rocks.

Ships and boats are the oldest inventions. From antiquity to modern times, great powers sought to have good access to the seas and oceans. This greatly facilitated trade relations. But the growth of air travel and the decline of mass shipbuilding have turned the shores, lonely bays and shipyards into ghosts of the former greatness of seagoing ships. Now, such places are a good topic for an article.

Although ships are often dismantled for scrap, many are left to rust in lonely bays, shoals and shipyards. Meanwhile, rust from ships pollutes the waters and becomes a clear sign of the country's decaying industrial age. (Below is the birth, life and death of the Titanic's twin brother, the cruise ship Britannic).

A large liner like the Titanic or Britannic, and especially their death, is romanticized by Hollywood, but the life and death of merchant and military ships is not so romantic. Parts of the ships, covered with rust, stand in docks and quiet bays. Some are half submerged under water, some are still holding on.

Aircraft carriers and battleships are some of the most impressive ships, but they don't last forever. For example, the Soviet cruiser Murmansk sank in 1994 while being towed for scrapping in India, and the German cruiser Hindenburg was deliberately scuttled in Scapa Flow, off the Orkney Islands. Aircraft carriers, in size, can only be compared with sea tankers, and that is why their death does not go unnoticed by the public. The French, for example, did not give their aircraft carrier to India for scrapping

But the aircraft carrier Oriskany was successfully sunk near Australia... Now this place is considered the best place for diving.

Of course, Oriskany was thoroughly cleaned before diving to protect against future environmental problems. But when the bulk carrier New Flame collided with a tanker in the Strait of Gibraltar, the first task was to save the ecosystem. Unfortunately, at some point the ship broke in half.

There are much fewer ship cemeteries today than there were 10 years ago. All due to stricter environmental standards. The ship cemetery on Staten Island is currently the most popular and visited place among its kind. This is how a ship graveyard can be turned into Disneyland for grown up boys