the world's most metal job

[asakiyume]

. . . has surely got to be working in the sulfur mines in the crater of Kawah Ijen, a volcano in East Java, Indonesia. Stop and think a moment. Sulfur mining. In a volcano.

It's a world of fire, acid, and poisonous gases.

(There is an acid lake in the crater.)

Molten sulfur is blood red, but it burns with a blue flame. The photographer Olivier Grunewald took these photos, which ran in the Boston Globe on 8 December 2010. (Source for the entire photo essay here.) (Hat tip to yamamanama for showing me these!)

sulfur flames

image © Olivier Grunewald


image © Olivier Grunewald

molten sulfur

image © Olivier Grunewald


The Boston Globe had another photo essay on the mine on 1 June 2009, focused more on the hard-labor aspects. Workers pry the raw mineral sulfur out by hand and carry it down the mountain in heavy-laden baskets, on their backs ...


photo by Ulet Ifansati


photo by Ulet Ifansati

In conclusion. If you want to do a Cracked list about working in actual hellish circumstances, don't leave out the sulfur mine of Kawah Ijen.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in the second photo shoot, one of the photos was of exactly that: the raw shoulders of one of the workers (this one (http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/kawa_06_01/k18_19137657.jpg)). Now you've made me curious about the movie Samsarra

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

We were able to catch it at the tiny theater at Trinity recently. It will probably lose a lot on the small screen.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I just checked it out on Wikipedia, and yup, it was that mine!

The movie sounds awesome--really wonderful.