A new ship-breaking yard that has come up for the first time in Kerala along the Kannur coast would destroy the state's pristine northern coastline and cause huge environmental problems, activists said on Thursday.
According to environmentalists, the ship-breaking yard at Kannur built by the Steel Industries Limited Kerala (SILK) is similar to the yards operating at Alang in Gujarat.
"The breaking yard at Kannur has floated all established norms such as clearance from competent authorities. Therefore, we want the government to urgently ban the yard from functioning," Greenpeace India ship breaking campaigner Ameer Shahul told rediff.com.
According to Greenpeace, which is campaigning against the ship-breaking yards at Gujarat, the yard at Azhikkal in Kannur is "very close to the fishing harbour, which is highly dangerous."
"The new ship-breaking yard is very close to the fishing area. As the breaking business grows it will displace the fishing industry from that area. Moreover, since hazardous wastes will be thrown into the beaches and the local area, it is going to be an environment disaster considering the high population density in the area," Shahul pointed out.
Reports said that SILK has already starting breaking vessels at the new yard. The company is said to have already brought one ship from Singapore, dismantled it and sent the steel extracted from it for re-rolling to one of its four steel factories.
Greenpeace activists say ships are now likely to be brought from South-East Asia to Kannur. "The company has employed the labour from Bihar in the Kerala yard as it does not want to involve any local people in the business,"
He said that SILK has not conducted any feasibility study at Kannur before it stared the ship-breaking yard.
"The situation at the SILK yard is going to be as dangerous as the yards in Alang in Gujarat," Shahul said.
In a recent report, Greenpeace India said that working conditions and safety measures in the ship-breaking yards in Alang are of great concern as accidents occur at periodic intervals, killing many workers due to the fact that vessels are sent to recycling without decontaminating.
It said in the last eight months, at least 25 people were killed and 50 injured in various explosions, putting the safety of workers on top of the agenda. Interestingly, many of such accidents never come to light and the families of the killed workers never get any compensation.
A major explosion occurred at yard No 94 in February at Alang killing 11 people and injuring 50 others when metal cutting work was being undertaken in a Greek oil tanker Amina.
Although the license of the concerned ship-breaker was revoked immediately, no serious action was taken by the Gujarat Maritime Board that would have prevented similar accidents.
"The situation in Alang is highly dangerous as the yards there have received the largest number of oil tankers in the recent past, with almost all of them in decontaminated nature," Shahul said.
Greenpeace said it would join hands with local environmental groups in Kerala to fight the new ship-breaking yard at Kannur because "a green state like Kerala with great tourist potential and a long coastline should not allow ship-breaking yards."
When contacted, the company officials at SILK refused to answer the charges leveled against it by environmentalists.
