Workers at the world's second biggest shipbreaking yard off Bangladesh's main port of Chittagong spend their lives cutting up filthy oil tankers, chemical carriers and rusting ferries.

For about $1.20 a day, thousands of workers use blow torches to dismantle dozens of ships each year in a fiercely competitive industry.

"There is a mixture of dirt and oily substances all around this place. Sometimes we find breathing difficult and our eyes get sore," said shipbreaker Badrul Islam, his face and skin blackened by grime.

"We suffer a lot, but cannot leave, otherwise we will starve," he said. "Our families will die."

At least 297 people have been killed and 600 injured in accidents at the Chittagong yard over the past 12 years, say police and officials in Chittagong, which handles 80 percent of the country's imports and exports.

The yard and the surrounding sea and shore are badly polluted and the workers - the yard employs about 35,000 people - have little access to medical treatment. A hospital is planned but has yet to be built.

"I have worked here for seven years," said Islam, a former farmhand who came to work as shipbreaker hoping to improve conditions for his family. "My family lives in Bogra, about 435 miles from Chittagong, and entirely depends on my meager income - $1.20 per day - for their survival. My children go to school, need clean clothes and medicine. But I can hardly manage them all," he said.

Other workers at the yard told similar stories. No one seemed to be seriously considering leaving.

Peace, happiness and prosperity

The yard houses 32 shipbreaking units, each run by different owners.

"We have been in this business for decades and have seen it grow gradually, providing jobs to people mostly from outside the Chittagong region," said Mohammad Mohsin, owner of PHP Shipbreaking and Recycling Ltd. He said PHP stands for peace, happiness and prosperity.

Asked if he had been able to provide those three things to his workers, Mohsin said: "We don't want to deprive our workers but we have limitations, too. We are trying to give them the best but a slice of their wage is often taken away by middlemen."

Middlemen supply many workers for the yard.

"Despite that, our workers are better placed with a guaranteed job round the year while farm laborers and other menial workers find it difficult to find a job every day."

Mohsin said he and other employers had asked the government to draw up comprehensive standards for both yard owners and workers.

"But this is being delayed as the government is consulting the International Labor Organization," he said, but gave no details.

On any day, thousands of grimy workers can be seen clambering on the rusting remains of ships towed or driven at full power onto the beach.

Sparks from blow-torches flare at dozens of places, and sledgehammers clatter as the workers cut up the vessels piece by piece. The metal is recycled to feed the construction industry.

Pollution

Shipbreakers import uncleaned vessels to save costs, adding to health hazards and pollution.

One shipbreaker, who asked not to be identified, said India and other countries clean their ships at Colombo, in Sri Lanka, before taking them to their breaking yards.

"But if we do this the costs would be doubled and the price of the products of re-rolling mills will go up substantially," the shipbreaker said. "This will have a negative impact on the country's booming real estate industry," said Chittagong trader Abdul Jabbar.

The ships often catch fire and chambers filled with gas sometimes explode, killing workers, said M. Shahidul Islam, who studies coastal environments and natural disasters as a researcher at Chittagong University.

He said large areas of the coast of southern Bangladesh were polluted with waste from scrapped ships, killing fish and making people sick.

Born out of disaster

The industry has its roots in a severe cyclone in 1960 that killed thousands of people and beached a giant foreign-owned ship that could not be refloated.

It took years to scrap the vessel but the work spawned an industry.

Workers said yard owners and managers were aware of their hardships but had kept wages unchanged for years. They answered workers' pleas for pay rises by saying their own incomes had suffered from the rising cost of buying and beaching ships.

One yard owner said the trade has to compete with neighboring India, China and Pakistan and times were not easy.

The yard now handles only about 40 ships a year - from about 70 a decade or so ago - as rising costs put jobs at risk.

Many workers say they can do little more than work at the yard as long as they can.

"Had we had any other way of earning bread, we would not have come here," said worker Abdus Salam.