A shipyard worker is enveloped in fumes coming off a separating wall he is cutting through with his blowtorch inside the hull of a ship being dismantled in one of the 127 ship-breaking plots in Gaddani, some 40Kms west of Karachi, Pakistan, on July 9, 2012. Gaddani’s ship-breaking yards employ some 10,000 workers including welders, cleaners, crane operators and worker supervisors. 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 break down a midsize average transport sea vessel of about 40,000 tonnes. 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 PCBs, employees get paid about 300 USD a month of which half is spent on food and rent for run-down rickety shacks near the yards, a labor representative told AFP.