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Picturesque Kawah Ijen is the world’s largest highly acidic lake and is the site of a labor intensive sulfur mining operation in which sulfur laden baskets are hand carried from the crater floor. In the future, the crater and its sulphur will be a major source of clean geothermal energy, in line with government plans to attract billions of dollars of investment in high-tech power plants.
In the meantime the miners of Kawah Ijen will extract the volcano’s mineral wealth the only way they know how, with bent backs and bare hands. It’s a hard way of making a living.
The quietly active volcano emits gases through fumaroles inside the crater, and local miners have tapped those gases to earn a living.
Stone and ceramic pipes cap the fumaroles, and inside, the sulfur condenses into a molten red liquid, dripping back down and solidifying into pure sulfur. Miners hack chunks off with steel bars, braving extremely dangerous gases and liquids with minimal protection, then load up as much as they can carry for the several kilometers to the weighing station.
Workers repair a sulfur pipe flow, watering it to keep it from burning. Nothing has changed here for decades. Nothing is mechanized. The men do everything by hand.
Price per kilogram solid sulphur is Rp. 600 (less then a dollar). Each worker can transport from 70–100 kilograms at once on the abrupt slopes of the volcano, using bamboo ladders where the slope is too steep. The sulphur must be carried to the crater rim approximately 300 meters above before being carried several kilometers down the mountain. Most miners make this journey twice a day.
One of the problems with improving the men’s situation is that they are all essentially freelance workers, with no direct employer. The only safety standards are those the men impose on themselves, which are very few.
After a long hard day, the miners are paid by a nearby sugar refinery by the weight of sulfur transported. As of July 2005, the typical daily earnings were equivalent to approximately $5.00 US per day!
To learn more about the beautiful Ijen Crater, where these miners tirelessly work, check out Jessy’s first article “Beautiful Kawah Ijen: The World’s Largest Acidic Volcanic Crater Lake”.
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