Coal workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, perform one of the city’s most physically demanding and hazardous jobs. Every day they carry heavy baskets of coal across unstable wooden planks and sharp coal fragments, often barefoot and without protective equipment. This documentary photo essay explores their working conditions, resilience and determination, offering a glimpse into an occupation that remains largely unseen despite its essential role in the local economy.

Visiting Bangladesh’s coal yards was a real eye-opener. Each basket earned the workers a token that was exchanged for wages at the end of the day. The more baskets they carried, the more they earned.

I watched as their bodies moved with mechanical precision, their faces covered in soot and sweat. They repeated the same exhausting journey throughout the day, carrying heavy loads across unstable planks, their movements becoming almost mechanical through repetition.

Bangladesh’s coal yards are places of relentless physical labour, where every basket carried represents another small step towards earning a day’s wage. Through these photographs, I wanted to document not only the harsh conditions but also the dignity, endurance and resilience of the workers whose efforts often go unnoticed.

As I walked away, I couldn’t shake the image of those tokens—tiny symbols of the price they pay to survive, one basket at a time.