Changing Flags to Use India's Ship Graveyard
Much of the dismantling of ships at Alang is done by hand—without safety gear.
Photographer: Dinodia/Agefoto
The container ship MV Justus, built in 1995 by Polish shipyard Gdynia Stocznia, spent most of its 19 years plying the seas with a European pedigree. It was first owned by a German ship fund run by Hamburg-based asset manager König & Cie. But like a growing number of aging vessels, the MV Justus changed its nationality only months before being taken out of service. In doing so, it avoided a late 2013 measure by the European Union that banned ships registered in its 28 member nations from using dangerous tidal beaches for ship demolition work.
On July 9, 2014, the ship changed its flag to that of the tiny Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts, according to data from NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a coalition of environmental, human rights, and labor rights organizations working toward safe and clean ship recycling. Then, after starting a journey from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands on July 15 and sailing through Port Said and Dubai, data compiled by Bloomberg show, it ended up on Aug. 17 near Bhavnagar, off the coast of the Indian state of Gujarat—defying a year-old restriction from the EU. On Aug. 28, now under an owner called Malwi Ship Breaking, according to Indian government data, the MV Justus docked at Alang, the ofttimes dangerous yard where the world’s ships go to die. True to form, about a month later a worker was killed when he fell from a high ladder while breaking up the vessel. Another was severely injured.