By Ira Boudway, Bloomberg Businessweek
With the 2014 World Cup in Brazil now less than 30 days away, eight workers have died building stadiums for the event. Even one death is a steep price for any sporting event, and this is a black eye for Brazil, which is behind schedule in its preparation. There is also some precedent: Two workers died during construction for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Yet the losses in Brazil and South Africa look minuscule compared with the crisis mounting in Qatar, which is scheduled to host the World Cup in the summer of 2022, despite extremely hot weather. Deaths there could number in the thousands.
In a new segment from ESPN’s (DIS) investigative wing, E:60, reporter Jeremy Schaap travels to Qatar to see the housing where Qatar’s immigrant workers live. The conditions are filthy, cramped, and dangerous. Even without the pressure of the spotlight of the World Cup, hundreds of young men die every year from accidents, suicides, and heart attacks—their bodies shipped back to widows and orphaned children in Nepal, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and other countries that send workers to the tiny emirate … more
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