Narrator:
Once beached and emptied, the ship lies ready for destruction.
What follows is dangerous and back-breaking work. Over months, men - both younger and older - mostly from far-flung districts - take a vessel apart steel plate by steel plate. At every point in the process, an accident is waiting to happen. Falling pieces of steel, gas explosions that have sent up to 25 men flying into the sea, accidents that deafen, maim and blind ... the potential for harm is everywhere.

winch sequence

Narrator:
You could see the workers know this all too well. They urge you to stand back from a freyed steel cable pulling the piece of the wrecked ship weighing 80 tons. Experience tells them we cannot be far enough away if the thick cable breaks, a whiplash that could remove a limb or a head or cause other fatal injury.

short upsound gas cutting

Narrator:
You would expect full safety gear in these conditions, but goggles are rare, as are arm and leg guards. Workers carry loads exceeding the 30 kg allowed by law, their bare feet trample through a debris-littered shipyard.
No cleaning up happens here. Asbestos for example lies scattered on the ground. After four to seven years of exposure, asbestos dust will form scar-like tissue in the lungs and make breathing extremely difficult. These are tough working conditions.