Sulfur miners who work in a LIVE volcano (and whose life expectancy is just 30)

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | PUBLISHED: 15:03 EST, 5 April 2012 | UPDATED: 15:05 EST, 5 April 2012 | Richard Ashmore

[Olog-hai]

This is the grim sight that meets sulfur miners who are forced to scrape a living on the site of a live volcano.

And not surprisingly, the horrendous conditions are to blame for them having a life expectancy of just 30 years.

As these sobering pictures show, around 200 brave souls toil up to 12 hours a day at the top of Ijen volcano, in Indonesia.

The men—who earn just £3 a day ($4.76 ATTOW)—carry baskets of hardened yellow sulfur weighing 70 to 90 kg (154-198 lbs) up a steep rocky path from the crater floor around ten times a day.

The toxic air and fumes can be fatal if breathed too long at the mine where the men risk their lives to supply the hellish substance for oil and detergent companies.

Wearing little or no safety equipment, all they have to protect them from the fumes is a wet rag held to their face—or a gas mask if they're lucky. …

And all this within deadly reach of the largest lake of sulfuric acid in the world. The pH of the “water” is 0.5—about the same as car battery acid. …

[Olog-hai]

Full article title: To hell and back... every day: The choking sulfur mine where workers do 12-hour shifts at a LIVE volcano (and aren't expected to live beyond 30)—the title used in the head is the one in the <title> tag of the article, especially since this one doesn't fit in FR's title field.

I'm not even going to go up onto an active volcano, let alone mine its sulfur with no protective equipment.

[wbill]

Suddenly, my job isn’t looking quite so bad anymore.

[Rebelbase]

Sulfuric acid in your lungs doesn’t lead to a long life.

[Rebelbase]

"I'm not even going to go up onto an active volcano, let alone mine its sulfur with no protective equipment."

[Tijeras_Slim]

Yeah, but unlike these guys you have to worry about saving for retirement.

[bboop]

First thot through my head — Forced? There is an entire WORLD out there, yet they choose to stay there and do that? My ggmother emigrated from Russia to Brazil to Kansas, and they were penniless. They just wanted a better life. “Forced by ignorance” it should read.

[tbw2]

Their country should allow an industrial operation to come in and extract sulfur on a massive scale. People are safer, prices come down, and the jobs probably pay more, too.

[Recon Dad]

But on the other hand,

“If you live to be one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.”
George F. Burns quote

[aruanan]

This is the grim sight that meets sulfur miners who are forced to scrape a living on the site of a live volcano.

Forced? By whom? Hephaestus?

[skinkinthegrass]

a greenie winnie laments: "CIVILIZATION!"

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***let alone mine its sulfur with no protective equipment. ***

Which reminds me. The movie BARABBAS will be shown this weekend on TCM.

Sentenced to the sulfur mines in Mt Etna.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Their country should allow an industrial operation to come in and extract sulfur on a massive scale.****

They did that in the US. Anyone remember when the ship SULFUR QUEEN disappeared with a load of this?

[Olog-hai]

Indonesia’s not the USA. It’s not inconceivable that they’re forced to do it. They’re certainly forced to go without PPE. And if there’s an eruption of anything besides sulfur, they die. Would you do that job?

[Olog-hai]

You must think that there is freedom of travel all over the world or something. Think that $4.76 per day will get them a visa and a plane ticket to another country, that is before they drop dead from premature emphysema and lung scarification? Sure, let's hitchhike on the next container ship or something.

It's the conditions that the word "forced" is brought into play over. It's not natural or safe to work in the crater of an active volcano either way. Would you do it? You could get the skin burned off you by the sulfuric acid, never mind the lava that can suddenly erupt out of any of those vents without warning.