Fatal accident in Alang raises fresh concerns as Hong Kong Convention nears entry into force

June 18, 2025, by Sara Kosmajac

Just weeks ahead of the entry into force of the Hong Kong Convention (HKC) for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships, another accident has claimed the life of a shipbreaking worker in Alang, India—widely regarded as the world’s largest ship dismantling yard and one that asserts its compliance with the convention’s standards.

Illustration; NGO Shipbreaking Platform 2014

According to the Belgium-based organization NGO Shipbreaking Platform, on May 20 this year, twenty-year-old Satur Bhai from Gujarat, who was employed as a helper (begari), a typically untrained, underpaid and unprotected position, fell to his death while dismantling a vessel at plot No. 50. He was reportedly tasked with removing furniture from the ship’s seventh level without a safety harness.

As informed, the vessel in question was the 2000-built 279-meter-long REM, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker that used to sail under the South Korean flag as SK Supreme. The unit was renamed to REM and re-registered to fly the St. Kitts and Nevis flag before being dumped in Alang.

The tanker’s beneficial owner, as per the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, is the South Korean maritime transportation player SK Shipping, which the organization has said ‘intentionally sidestepped’ international safety and environmental norms in order to “obtain the highest profit for the end-of-life asset.”

“This tragedy puts a spotlight on the failure of both national governments and international regulators to protect workers and the environment. If global shipping powers like South Korea are serious about sustainability and accountability, they must invest in domestic recycling capacity and end exploitative shipbreaking practices abroad,” Ingvild Jenssen, Executive Director & Founder of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, underscored.

“International policy makers need to furthermore ensure effective enforcement of the Basel Convention, which currently provides the highest level of protection for both the environment and workers,” she further added.

Despite mounting scrutiny, hazardous and exploitative practices remain routine in Alang, where vessels are dismantled directly on tidal mudflats, the Belgium-headquartered entity stressed. Moreover, as emphasized, while the HKC, due to enter force on June 26, seeks to bring oversight to the ship recycling/dismantling industry, its ‘diluted’ provisions risk entrenching the very conditions it was meant to reform.

As noted, Satur Bhai’s death is not an isolated incident. In the past five years, at least 10 workers are said to have lost their lives taking apart the global fleet in Alang under conditions that would never be allowed in major ship-owning countries, including South Korea.

It is believed that at least 80% of the worldwide fleet is scrapped on the beaches of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. They are typically dismantled under subpar conditions. Simultaneously, the shipbreaking sector appears to consistently be marked by systemic neglect, opaque ownership structures, and a “race to the bottom” in ecological and labour protections, per the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.

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The latest fatality comes amid renewed pressure on South Korea to halt the dumping of end-of-life vessels on South Asian beaches. As of April 2025, it is estimated that, since 2020, at least 94 ships owned by South Korean companies were dismantled on the beaches of Bangladesh and India.

In the last two years alone, three serious accidents, which led to deaths and injuries, also allegedly took place on a South Korean vessel.

Moreover, per the NGO’s 2024 assessment, the East Asian nation was one of the ‘worst dumpers of the year’, alongside China, Russia, Switzerland, and the Philippines, among others. The practice of exporting hazardous waste to countries lacking adequate containment and disposal capacity violates the Basel Convention, which South Korea has ratified.

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