MT Suvarna Swarajya explosion: NGOs call for urgent reform in shipbreaking industry amid regulatory failures

The September 7 explosion on the oil tanker MT Suvarna Swarajya in Bangladesh—which claimed the lives of six people with four still in critical condition—has brought to light the lack of adequate international and national regulations, oversight and labor rights protections in the shipbreaking industry, the Human Rights Watch and the Belgium-based NGO Shipbreaking Platform said.

On September 7, 2024, an explosion occured at a shipbreaking yard in the district of Chattogram’s Sitakunda upazila (administrative division functioning as a sub-unit of a district), severely injuring 12 workers, of whom six have since passed away from their injuries with the remaining four fighting for their lives.

According to a report from the police team that was first on-site, the incident likely occured when the workers tried to break open the fuel tank of the scrapped ship.

The explosion happened in the Unit-2 of automation company S.N. Corporation, just months after Japanese classification society Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (otherwise known as ClassNK) certified the Unit-2 yard under the requirements of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, set to take effect from June 26, 2025.

In the aftermath of the accident, Bangladesh authorities reportedly shut down S.N. Corporation’s yard ‘indefinitely’, halting all work on the MT Suvarna Swarajya. An official investigation into the accident was to be rolled out. Moreover, as disclosed, the Department of Environment suspended the yard’s environmental clearance and ordered the corporation to submit a report, within no more than three days, explaining why the yard should not be shut down for good.

Human Rights Watch, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, and other environmental organizations have raised concerns numerous times, noting that the Hong Kong Convention provided for ‘weak environmental and safety standards‘, adding that it could undermine existing laws and efforts to reform dangerous and polluting practices.

After the Bangladesh incident, Humans Rights Watch reportedly wrote to S.N. Corporation, Best Oasis, the Shipping Corporation of India and ClassNK, yet only ClassNK responded, confirming that the company had conducted its earlier audit based on IMO guidelines.

“The tragic explosion at one of SN Corporation’s shipbreaking yards underscores the dangers of an international regulatory system set up to profit the shipping industry rather than protect workers’ rights and safety,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The Hong Kong Convention and its so-called certificates of compliance, like the one granted to SN Corporation, create the dangerous illusion that these yards are safe and environmentally sustainable.”

Despite S.N. Corporation’s poor health and safety records, with at least 14 deaths and 22 injuries since 2010, MT Suvarna Swarajya—previously owned by the Shipping Corporation of India—was sold to Best Oasis’ subsidiary Last Voyage DMCC in March 2023, only to be sold again in May that same year to S.N. Corporation for dismantling.

According to data collected by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, among the casualties in yards owned by S.N. Corporation since 2010, six injuries occured earlier this year across three yards.

Two of them were, in fact, on MT Suvarna Swarajya in May, when a falling pipe broke a worker’s leg and a steel rope injured another worker’s hand. In 2021, one worker died when he fell from a ship during a cutting operation whereas in 2020, another one succumbed to his injuries after being hit by a falling metal cable.

According to NGO Shipbreaking Platform, workers from S.N. Corporation have time and time again openly complained about the dangerous conditions they were forced to work under. One stated that he faced risk “every day” and that no safety measures were provided.

There are also reports of a lack of safety equipment, with the worker having to pay for his own boots, goggles and protective clothing, despite earning less than $1.50 per hour—well below Bangladesh’s minimum wage for shipbreaking workers.

As per NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a massive issue here lies in the fact that shipowners in certain regions often rely on a network of middlemen and loopholes to circumvent international regulations that prohibit the export of ships to dismantling facilities in Bangladesh where there is a lack of proper environmental or labor protections.

The reason is that many cash buyers—used by some shipping companies to circumvent international policies—tend to use shell companies or ship registries with lower regulatory burdens as part of their final voyage package. This is said to be done to further obfuscate the beneficial owner of the ship before it is sold to a shipbreaking yard with minimal environmental and safety requirements.

Within the context of the Bangladeshi incident, cash buyers like Best Oasis can, thus, shield ships’ original owners and operators from accountability for deaths and injuries that occur while their ships are being taken apart.

Furthermore, as the two NGOs highlight, since the three main cash buyers, among which is Best Oasis, sell ships ‘almost exclusively’ to yards in South Asia, where labor rights abuses reign supreme and environmental harms have been well-documented, it might be safe to expect that shipping companies which sell end-of-life ships via cash buyers know their vessels could be scrapped under dangerous and unsustainable conditions.

By law, to be imported to the country for breaking, a ship needs to be issued a “no objection” certificate from Bangladesh’s Ship Recycling Board, indicating that there are no hazardous materials onboard. The country’s Department of Environment is also required to issue an “environmental clearance” document while the Department of Explosives must issue a “gas free from man entry” and “gas free for hot work” papers.

In practice, the situation often looks different.

Back in 2019, the Bangladesh High Court ordered that vessels sailing under flags that have been gray- and black-listed for persistent violations by port state control should not be imported into the country. Regardless of the decision, more than a hundred of end-of-life ships under these flags were delivered to Bangladesh, directly violating the court order.

One of them was the North Sea Producer FPSO, which was sold by a 50-50 JV owned by Denmark’s Maersk and Brazil’s Odebrecht in 2016, only to leave the UK the same year and end up in Chittagong in Bangladesh to be scrapped on a beach.

In a 2023 report, Human Rights Watch viewed 21 leaked hazardous waste certificates. The NGO has described the content’s language as ‘consistently pro forma’ and, in some cases, verbatim, suggesting that ‘the parties drafting the certificates were not conducting adequate inspections of the actual materials onboard the ships.’

Both the Humans Rights Watch and the NGO Shipbreaking Platform have called this ‘lack of genuine inspection and oversight’ a foot through the door into high-risk accidents like the explosion on the MT Suvarna Swarajya.

While the two NGOs have observed that the Bangladesh interim government has already taken steps to address S.N. Corporation’s alleged failure to ensure worker safety, they hold the opinion that international corporations that allowed the MT Suvarna Swarajya to be dismantled under conditions presumed to be perilous should also be held accountable.

At minimum, the groups have further proposed, if found responsible, the companies involved—including S.N. Corporation, Best Oasis and the Shipping Corporation of India—should cover the bills for the medical treatment and long-term rehabilitation to the injured workers and provide compensation for those who lost their lives.

Furthermore, the groups have recommended that Bangladesh’s interim government enforce the 2009 High Court order, which halted the import of ships for recycling until there were “satisfactory provisions for the safety of the workers”.

Ideally, the NGOs have noted that High Court’s 18-point directive and subsequent orders requiring meticulous health and safety standards as well as labor rights and environmental protections should also be put into effect, including the ban on importing ships under gray- and black-listed flags.

In line with the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights, if it is not already in place, Humans Rights Watch and NGO Shipbreaking Platform have proposed that shipping companies adopt ‘formal and explicit due diligence policies’, assuring the company maintains oversight of where ships are recycled and ensures that ships, including those previously owned or operated by the company, are not discarded in yards that use the beaching method.

To do this, the groups suggest the Ministry set a timebound directive to yards to move all recycling operations off the beach, as dismantling ships on sand can be full of hazards while being impossible for emergency vehicles to access the job sites in case of injuries or fire.

At last, the NGOs have emphasized that countries at the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee meeting (MEPC 82) on September 30 should establish a ‘clear concensus’ that the Hong Kong Convention does not replace the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, which applies to end-of-life ships, and offers a higher level of control.

By extension, shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh should install proper industrial platforms in accordance with the Basel Convention Technical Guidelines on Ship Recycling, the organizations said.

“The fire on the MT Suvarna Swarajya is a grave and revolting reminder both of the shipbreaking sector’s failure to comply with national requirements and of the weak standards set by the Hong Kong Convention,” Ingvild Jenssen, Director at NGO Shipbreaking Platform, pointed out.

“It calls for action also at the international level to put a halt to practices that cause irreparable damage, including by taking apart ships laden with toxic substances on tidal mudflats. Beaching can never be safe, nor environmentally sound, and, if allowed to continue, amounts to endorsing the exploitation of vulnerable communities and ecosystems in developing countries.”