zoomVIRGIN STAR (first ship from the left) after its arrival in Chattogram; Image Courtesy: NGO Shipbreaking Platform

An accident at the shipbreaking beach of Chattogram, Bangladesh, has taken the lives of two workers, while another thirteen suffered severe injuries, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform said.

The accident occurred in the afternoon hours of August 31 at Ziri Subedar shipbreaking yard during scrapping operations on the ship CSL Virginia.

NGO Shipbreaking Platform said that a heavy cable collapsed on the ship, hitting several workers at once. The injured workers were transported to Chattogram Medical College Hospital for treatment. Following the accident, local authorities ordered the temporary closure of the yard.

Relevant officials have launched an investigation into the matter.

So far this year, fifteen shipbreaking workers have lost their lives in Chattogram.

“It’s sad that our regulatory authorities had to wait for deaths of seven workers and grievous injuries of fifteen in a row of seven incidences in this yard alone since 2011,” Rizwana Hasan, Chief Executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) and Platform’s board member, said.

The container ship CSL Virginia, beached in Bangladesh in February 2019, was owned and managed by Andreas Hadjiyiannis’ Cyprus Sea Lines, NGO Shipbreaking Platform cited shipping media.

The vessel was sent to the scrapyard after its fuel tanks were breached in a collision with a Tunisian ferry off Corsica in October 2018.