1. Living Near to Volcanoes Sulphur Mining in an active volcano
2. Matches and white sugar are among the products made with sulphur hewn by hand from an active volcano in Indonesia. Is this one of the most dangerous jobs in the world?
3. KawahIjenvolcano 2,600m (8,660ft) tall, last erupted 1999 with ash but not magma In Pacific 'Ring of Fire' of 130 active volcanoes Yellow area, left of picture, is solidified sulphur Crater lake 1km across, and its water has pH of 0.5 - similar to battery acid
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5. Several hundred men work in the heart of Ijen volcano in East Java, Indonesia. Each day, they collect yellow lumps of sulphur that solidify beside its acidic crater lake.
6. Once processed, the sulphur is used to bleach sugar, make matches and fertiliser, and vulcanise rubber in factories at home and abroad.
7. The miners carry 90kg loads up 200 metres out of the crater and back down the volcano's outer slopes to a weighing station - a journey they make several times a day."There are many big mountains but only one gives us the sulphur we need," says Sulaiman, 31, who has mined the crater for 13 years. The miners have little in the way of protective gear beyond a damp cloth to cover the nose and mouth. Gloves and gas masks are an unaffordable luxury for men paid $10 to $15 a day.
8. In the past 40 years, 74 miners have died after being overpowered by fumes that can suddenly swirl from fissures in the rock. The poisonous clouds are not steam, but hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide gases so concentrated they burn the eyes and throat, and can eventually dissolve the miners' teeth
9. Pipes are driven into the fissures in the rock to extract sulphur from the bowels of the mountain. It is blood red when molten, and turns yellow as it cools and solidifies.
10. The miners break the cooled sulphur into chunks, and load up their wicker baskets for the 200 metre climb back up out of the crater
11. Each man carries up to twice his body weight from the crater to the weighing station part way down the mountain.
12. The work takes a toll on their bodies. But their bodies have, in turn, adapted. Many can hold their breath for extended periods and some have hyper-developed shoulder muscles from years of lugging heavy baskets up and down the mountain, says BBC researcher Dina Mufti. "Our families worry when we come here. They say working here can shorten your life," says Hartomo, 34, a sulphur miner for 12 years. "I do it to feed my wife and kid. No other job pays this well," adds Sulaiman.
