Blue Lady causes a row at the breakers

3:00pm Tuesday 12th December 2006

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THE famous transatlantic liner SS France, which is on the verge of being scrapped in India is at the centre of a complex legal wrangle involving international pollution laws and workers' rights.

No sooner had the liner, later known as SS Norway and now called Blue Lady, arrived in Alang, India last August than a storm of controversy broke out over her rusting bows.

Environmental and labour rights groups are celebrating victory in the latest round of arguments over whether the ship, that during the 1960s and 1970s was such a familiar sight on Southampton Water, can be broken up or not.

Ruling A provisional ruling from the Indian law courts has forbidden work to begin on cutting up the once great liner as scrapping could endanger the environment and be dangerous for the workmen as the ship contained high levels of asbestos.

The Indian Supreme Court has now asked local pollution control authorities in Gujurat to examine the present situation to see if Alang had the proper facilities to handle asbestos, oil residues and other dangerous chemicals.

Earlier in the year the Bangladeshi authorities turned the vessel away because of the amounts of asbestos, which one estimate puts at 1,240 tonnes, on-board the ship.

A committee established by the Indian Supreme Court has established "alarming indications of asbestosis and death by accidents now afflicting thousands for workers in the world's largest ship-breaking yards in India'' and that there should be "an immediate halt to the export and import of ships that have not been first pre-cleaned to remove hazards.''

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