Boating, Karachi

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When the pilot whale losses its bearings, it beaches itself. Just like these ships, expert pilots/captains steer the ancient and obsolete ships towards coast, and intentionally beaches them. Sometimes this process takes hours till the ship is stabilized on the coast. Than hundred of men, like working ants, and bare hands, scavenge the beached ship, and devours it in 2-3 months time. This is Gadiani beach, home to one of the largest ship breaking yard in Pakistan.

This ship breaking yard was one of the largest supplier of steel to Pakistan booming market, till cheap steal from Iran and China started inflowing into the market, and it became unfeasible to procure steal through this means. At times this ship yard was lined with hundreds of obsolete decaying freighter, oil tankers, liners, and other ships. Now less than ten are their at one time. Couple of years ago, this Ship yard saw the second largest ship ever built dismantled in couple of months.

Although it was a boom for the local market, where readily steal was available for construction, this industry caused environmental degradation around its coasts, as several of these “Deadly Poisonous” ships, filled with asbestos and other dangerous construction materials were brought in. There was no concern for the rules set under the Basel Convention.

With cheap labor readily available, men working on these ships were untrained and poor, requiring hard labor with low pay and no benefits. They virtually dismantled these ships with their bare hands, cutting ship with blow torches into small pieces, using almost no machinery and no protective gears against fire or chemicals. Other than this they were also exposed to a dangerous – accident prone – environment.

Gadiani is situated approx. 60 km from Karachi on the Hub road which is going towards Quetta. In addition to being a ship yard, it is also a picnic spot, as it has a beautiful sandy beach.