Kawa Ijen is the active crater of the Ijen volcano in East Java. The crater has a turquoise acid lake at the bottom, which contrasts starkly with the yellow, sulphur coated rocks of the crater. It is a place of immense beauty, but also the site of a sulphur mine. The workers mine the sulphur from the active fumarole at the bottom of the crater and carry loads of it out of the crater for use in other industries (mainly sugar refining).
As with most mines, mining operations are split into two areas - maintenance/development and production. The production work is generally the highest paid as it is based on actual production; in this case, kilograms of sulphur carried out of the crater. This is backbreaking work, in cruel conditions and the miners get paid IDR 550/kg (US$0.06/kg). This translates to about US$9/day for a top miner. Even this is better than the development work, at least it was on this day.
The fumarole emits a stream of hot gases at more than 200 deg C. These gases are a mix of steam, sulphur, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and various other, generally nasty gases, but no oxygen. The miners collect the sulphur by directing these gases through iron pipes which allow the elemental sulphur to condense, flow out of the bottoms of the pipes and solidify in areas know as "kitchens". The kitchens are where the sulphur is collected and put into baskets for the production miners to carry out of the mine.
On this day, 29th July 2008, the wind was quite gusty and had filled the crater with toxic gases. It was also a day when the miners needed to do some work to add new pipes to the fumarole. This was done by first trying to cool the fumarole with a hose. I suspect this did very little (have you ever tried cooling a volcano with a garden hose?), but at least they tried. The miners then formed a bucket line to pass up new pipes and buckets of cement to hold them in place. This work had to be done in the very worst location possible - right on top of the fumarole where the heat and gases were at their most extreme. I had a respirator on for the whole time I was in the crater, but even then I could only approach the fumarole with great care and I had to be prepared to retreat at any instant if the wind blew the fumes back towards me. Not even a good respirator will let you breathe when there isn't enough oxygen in the air. Some miners had old respirators (which probably didn't work any more), but most had to rely on breathing through a wet rag held in their mouth. This did help to absorb the gases, but it also forms an acid solution which dissolves their teeth. The work was very slow as any great exertion on the part of the miners was impossible in conditions with so little breathable air. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.
As with most mines, mining operations are split into two areas - maintenance/development and production. The production work is generally the highest paid as it is based on actual production; in this case, kilograms of sulphur carried out of the crater. This is backbreaking work, in cruel conditions and the miners get paid IDR 550/kg (US$0.06/kg). This translates to about US$9/day for a top miner. Even this is better than the development work, at least it was on this day.
The fumarole emits a stream of hot gases at more than 200 deg C. These gases are a mix of steam, sulphur, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and various other, generally nasty gases, but no oxygen. The miners collect the sulphur by directing these gases through iron pipes which allow the elemental sulphur to condense, flow out of the bottoms of the pipes and solidify in areas know as "kitchens". The kitchens are where the sulphur is collected and put into baskets for the production miners to carry out of the mine.
On this day, 29th July 2008, the wind was quite gusty and had filled the crater with toxic gases. It was also a day when the miners needed to do some work to add new pipes to the fumarole. This was done by first trying to cool the fumarole with a hose. I suspect this did very little (have you ever tried cooling a volcano with a garden hose?), but at least they tried. The miners then formed a bucket line to pass up new pipes and buckets of cement to hold them in place. This work had to be done in the very worst location possible - right on top of the fumarole where the heat and gases were at their most extreme. I had a respirator on for the whole time I was in the crater, but even then I could only approach the fumarole with great care and I had to be prepared to retreat at any instant if the wind blew the fumes back towards me. Not even a good respirator will let you breathe when there isn't enough oxygen in the air. Some miners had old respirators (which probably didn't work any more), but most had to rely on breathing through a wet rag held in their mouth. This did help to absorb the gases, but it also forms an acid solution which dissolves their teeth. The work was very slow as any great exertion on the part of the miners was impossible in conditions with so little breathable air. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.
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