ROBERTO SCHMIDT

A Pakistani worker pulls on a wire he will connect to a chain that will be used to peel away a slab of the outer structure of a beached vessel on July 10, 2012 at the Geddani ship-breaking yard. Geddani, some 40kms (25 miles) west of Karachi, employs some 10,000 workers including welders, cleaners, crane operators and worker supervisors nd is composed of 127 ship-breaking plots. The yards are one of the largest ship-breaking operations in the world rivaling in size those located in India and Bangladesh. It takes 50 workers about three months to dismantle a 40,000 tonnes ship. The multimillion-dollar ship-breaking industry contributes significantly to the national supply of steel to Pakistani industries. For a six-day working week of hard and often dangerous work handling asbestos, heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), employees get paid about $300 a month of which half is spent on food and rent in the run-down shacks near the yards.