Mining for the ‘Devil’s Gold’ in the mouth of an active Indonesian volcano
Hand-mining sulphur from the crater of Indonesia’s Kawah Ijen volcano is some of the most dangerous and physically demanding work on earth - but for these miners the only way is up. | VIDEO
At 2am, the first groups of tourists present their tickets and health certificates and gas masks to security staff at the entry gate of the Ijen volcano in East Java, Indonesia. Beginning their 2.5km trek to the peak, they pass through a small clearing. This muster point is crowded with trolley carts, and men in gumboots and cotton work pants and windproof jackets. All of them are smoking. Some spruik a ride in their steel-framed carts, which they call “Lamborghinis”, up the steep muddy path. Others ignore the tourists – hikers who come from all over the world, as well as Indonesians – completely.
These men are some of the last in the world to mine sulphur by hand. While the tourists look down from the peak, taking selfies and long-exposure photographs of the “blue fire” phenomenon this volcano is renowned for, the miners work among the fumes and gases on the crater floor. They have limited protection and no certification or safety protocols – only each other and their livelihoods.
Tonight, each of these 20 men will carry more than twice their body weight of sulphur out of the crater. They know this mineral – a bright yellow rock that brings economic stability and also cripples their health – as the Devil’s Gold. This is one of the most physically demanding and dangerous jobs in the world, but the men must still maintain a sense of joy and pleasure in their work, says 46-year-old miner Ahmad. “Yes, it’s very heavy, difficult work. But we need to find the money to live. The thing that keeps me going is my wife, my children, my grandchildren, and the fear of hunger,” he says.
“If you’ve worked here a long time, the effects of this work become normal, the same as working in the rice fields. And if you stop to feel the effects, you can enjoy the work, because you just enjoy the pleasure of using your muscles to earn money. After we cart the sulphur and weigh it, we get paid straight away. The company always pays immediately. Our future is certain with the mine.”
Ahmad is one of 67 miners registered as labourers with PT Candi Ngrimbi. Every night, he and his colleagues extract 9 to 15 tonnes of raw sulphur from this Ijen deposit. It’s sold to a nearby refinery where it is smelted down into a whitening agent for sugar and to make matches and cosmetic products.
He will earn 1500 rupiah, or 15 cents, for every kilogram of sulphur he carries out tonight. On a good night, when his body isn’t too sore and his cough isn’t too bad, he can carry almost 150kg back down the slopes of the volcano, earning around 220,000 rupiah ($22). It doesn’t sound like much, but this is one of the highest paid and well-respected professions in the area, he says. “There aren’t a lot of other options. You can work in tourism, you can work selling things in a little shop, or work on a farm. But with those jobs, sometimes you get lucky and you sell things and get paid. Sometimes you don’t. On the mine, the wage is certain,” he says. “Our families and our community respect us for our physical strength and our determination. It makes us proud. If we can help to maintain the survival of our people, this is our true reward.”
However, the men’s labour comes at a heavy cost to their health. Both Ahmad and his colleague Adi have scars on their shoulders from the heavy loads they have shouldered for the past 20 years, and others have developed deformations of the spine and legs. The toxic volcanic fumes cause more than half the miners to suffer from pharyngitis (sore throats), and one-third experience respiratory diseases every month.
Safe Work Australia recommends limiting regular workplace sulphur dioxide exposure to two parts per million, but scientists have found levels more than 30 times that near the Ijen volcano crater.
While some tourists wear gas masks, most miners cannot afford them and work with a wet sarong or piece of cloth stuffed in their mouth. In the wet season, the fumes in the crater become especially unbearable, says Adi. “When it rains, jeez. It’s just bursting with smoke. When it’s like that, sometimes you don’t know when you need to piss. It just comes out. And the smoke makes you cry. It makes you sick,” he says.
Arriving at the volcano peak in the early dawn, the air is thick with the typical sulphur stench of rotten eggs, the crater a hazy midnight blue. Below, it is deceptively beautiful; this is the largest acidic lake in the world, with a pH similar to battery acid. The water is caustic enough to burn skin and dissolve teeth. It sometimes erupts poisonous gases without warning, and the men must keep an eye out for one another, says Adi.
“The poisonous gas is the most dangerous. You never know when it’s going to arrive, and it can travel 100m from the lake. One of my friends died from the gas one night.
“There have been other miners who have died here too. But maybe that was their destiny. They weren’t afraid. And maybe you can meet your destiny anywhere you go. But yes, the work is very dangerous.”
The men require almost no certification to work on the mine, only their ID card and a letter from a doctor to say they are in good physical health. They work whenever they are able, with most men working an average of four nights per week. “It’s up to you how much you want to work. If you’re tired, you don’t go. If you’re not tired you can go up every night. It really depends on your health,” says Adi.
When they are unable to work, some of the men turn to tourists. They sell small fibreglass figures tinted the same colour as the sulphur rock. Others offer “Lamborghini” trolley rides to tourists walking up and down the hill. While finding ways to profit from tourism offers a safer alternative, the industry is mostly unregulated in Indonesia, and in these parts, most of the able-bodied men prefer not to rely on it.
“With tourists, sometimes you find someone to carry up and get paid, sometimes you don’t,” says a 36-year-old miner, Eko. “If I come home to my family with no money, what then?”
The men have also become something of a voyeuristic tourist attraction themselves. Some tourists descend into the crater with the men, posing for photos of them with their baskets in exchange for money. Others take selfies in the thick sulphur smoke. Some critics argue this is a form of “poverty tourism”, or the commodification of human suffering.
“Tourists seem to relish narrating their tales of survival in apparently dangerous situations, an attitude not unlike that found towards other potentially hazardous recreations and extreme sports,” says University of North Alabama researcher Michael Pretes.
These men, however, see things differently. Tourism offers them the chance to supplement their daily income with enough for luxuries like coffee and cigarettes, and they are proud of the role they play in attracting greater visitor numbers to the area. “They come for the blue fire but they come for us too,” says Eko. “Sometimes they get in the way, but we are still proud that we can help move forward the economy.”
From the peak, the trail down to the crater is 1300m of steep scree and volcanic rock. Beside the lake shore are a dozen rusty 44-gallon drums wedged beneath 120m long copper pipes, which run underground into a gas vent. Highly concentrated sulphur gas flows out through the pipes and precipitates into solid sulphur on the cold rocks. The men chip off lumps of it and load up their baskets to carry back out of the crater.
They queue to take their turn collecting the sulphur. The oldest and most senior men go first, and if they collect more than they can carry they give it to the man waiting behind. This respect and fraternity are vital in such a dangerous environment, says Rohman, 44.
“In Indonesia, the eldest always deserve respect. They have been here the longest, worked the hardest. They have earned it. We work together to provide for our families,” he explains.
“Everyone that works here is like a brother to one another. We’re all friends and we work together. Working together gives us strength. It helps us to appreciate some of the beauty and the joy of our work, and to relieve the exhaustion. It’s important to laugh. If you’re alone, you feel fed up. But not if you’re together with your friends.”
Rohman has worked here for 20 years, and he hopes he’ll be one of the last generations of miners taking sulphur from the crater. He says his struggles have already enabled him to provide a better life for his children, and it is this thought alone that gives him the strength to endure such backbreaking and dangerous labour.
“My eldest child is already working in a bank. That is the reward of my struggle,” he says.
“Even though it’s not much, it’s enough for them to enjoy a brighter future. I hope that through my work, they never have to work in the mine. This is our fortune. We just have to keep going, and be careful.”
