Bangladesh: Stop scrapping ships

The High Court yesterday issued a suo moto rule directing the government to stop all kinds of scrapping of ships in the country until further order. The HC order came against the backdrop of another explosion on a ship at a ship-breaking yard in Sitakunda that killed four workers on Tuesday.

The High Court yesterday issued a suo moto rule directing the government to stop all kinds of scrapping of ships in the country until further order. The HC order came against the backdrop of another explosion on a ship at a ship-breaking yard in Sitakunda that killed four workers on Tuesday.

The HC bench also ordered the authorities concerned to move the unclean hazardous ship away from the beach until further order. It also issued a contempt of court rule against the owner of the yard Master Abul Kashem, and officials concerned.

The HC in March 2009 directed the government not to allow any ship in Bangladesh without cleaning its in-built toxins.

But with the permission of the Department of Environment, Master Kashem, owner of MAK Corporation, imported three hazardous ships in December last year and started dismantling those despite the HC ban.

The HC directed them to keep the ships, which were already imported for dismantling, at such places that those could be relocated in a short notice, and the officials concerned from customs and port authority could easily visit those.

The court also prohibited unloading materials from those ships until further order.

Yesterday the court also ordered the chairman of Chittagong Port Authority to form a committee with three experts within seven days to investigate the explosion.

The committee has to probe whether anybody was negligent in ensuring the workers’ safety, and if there was any violation of the court’s order regarding scrapping ships.

The committee will have to find out whether any negligent person was ever brought to book and whether the victims were duly compensated.

As per the court order, the committee also has to investigate what measures have been taken to prevent such accidents in the future.

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