The miners begin work shortly after midnight. The rag helps the men cope with poisonous fumes. The air at the crater is thick with toxic volcanic gas. Indonesian men use long metal poles to break off chunks of yellow crust -- sulfur -- from the crater floor. The chalky mineral builds up around vents that belch out yellow smoke from inside the volcano. CNN Fumes billow across the warm, milky blue crater lake. The lake water is heavily acidic. Miners load the sulfur ore into pairs of baskets at opposite ends of a long bar of wood. CNN The sulfur is trucked down to a crude factory in the middle of the jungle. Wood-fired ovens heat giant cauldrons where workers melt chunks of sulfur ore down to a liquid. The molten sulfur flows down a wooden sluice where filters help purify the liquid. It quickly solidifies into a bright yellow crust, which is broken into pieces and loaded into sacks. The volcanic sulfur is primarily used to purify sugar, but also to make soap, skin treatments and explosives. A view of Mount Meranti, which neighbors Ijen volcano in East Java, Indonesia. Prev Next
