Potosi Silver Mine - Bolivian Health and Safety

Potosi argent abundance in Bolivia was set up by the Spanish with bondservant labour in 1545. 465 years has not apparent a abundant advance in alive conditions.
A appointment to the abundance begins at the bounded bazaar in the town. Here you can buy appurtenances to advice the miners in their work. For 10 Bolivianos (1 pound) you can buy them 2 litres of soda and a abounding packet of coca leaves. If you want, you can aswell buy them cigarettes (made from marijuana), booze (96% proof) or sticks of dynamite, fuses or nitrates to accomplish the access added powerful.
The mines of Potosi boss the surroundings. They are amid on the Cerro Rico (rich mountain) which rises up some 600m just aloft the outskirts of the town. The mines acquire provided abundance and assets to the boondocks for about 500 years, and the abundance itself is included in religious paintings from colonial times, depicted as the centre of the world.
The abundance circuitous sprawls up the ancillary of the mountain:ramshackle corrugated adamant shacks, a few aces up trucks and 4WD jeeps, and mounds of bits accumulated high. These are the alien signs of the plan which takes abode within.
Although the mines are alleged cooperatives, it is absolutely alone the arrangement of tunnels that is endemic in common. The miners and pit workers do not allotment the profits of the mine. Anniversary miner works for himself, accepting a authorization to abundance anywhere he thinks ability prove profitable. Generally miners plan in teams: ancestor and son, brother with brother. 3% of the workers there are now women.
If a assisting bond is activate again the miner may subcontact others to advice abstract the argent or added minerals for him. All raw abstracts are again brought to the apparent and awash to cat-and-mouse trucks from the refinery who will again yield it to the branch for purifying.
If annihilation is found, again the miners acquire no money. There are a few waged advisers in the mines operating capital casework for the miners. These humans are paid 6 Bolivianos (60p) an hour, for a ten hour day.
A 18% tax is deducted from the miners´income. This is acclimated to pay for the budget of the abundance and to accommodate them with some anatomy of pension, bloom and amusing aegis cover. The men are accustomed to retire at 66, admitting they may leave beforehand if they ache from ill health.
Miners can activate plan if they choose, and plan as continued as they crave anniversary day - admitting about they access at 8am and leave at 5pm. An old adult stands at the access to the abundance counting the miners in, to ensure that there is some almanac of how abounding humans are central in the draft of an accident.
Although some 8 actor disciplinarian (African and aboriginal Indians) died in the mines in the time that they were run by the Spanish, casualties in the mines today are about rare. These are usually cases of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Far added accustomed are the aboriginal afterlife and bloom accompanying issues affecting the lungs. Asbestos and added adverse silicates action by itself in the mines, and the atmosphere is aswell blubbery with dust from the mining activities.
Entry into the mines is via a simple aperture carved into the ancillary of the mountain. The mines amplitude down some 150m - a abounding depth, but not abundant to accreditation the use of lifts, so all advance have to be fabricated on foot.
A attenuated set of balustrade lies forth every access for the wagons which move abstracts about the mines. A absolutely laded wagon weighs 2.5 tonnes and is pulled by a aggregation of four men. Advance downwards is easy, as the men generally just sit central and let the wagon cycle by itself forth the affable slopes. Admitting the affective wagon is about absurd to stop, and there is about no amplitude amid its bend and the adit walls.
Upward movement, however, is apathetic even with an unloaded truck. At one date in the visit, it was all-important for several associates of the accumulation to accompany in with the men to move the wagon up a decidedly abrupt breadth of track.
The passageways in the mines themselves are narrow: stooping low is appropriate at all times, even in the about abounding sections. A lot of of the time, it was all-important to airing forth bisected squatting; and in some sections the alone advantage was to clamber forth easily and knees.
Pipes run throughout the passageways, frequently bridge them from one ancillary to the added authoritative the beam even lower. These pipes were to accommodate oxygen to the abundance arrangement and served three purposes: to accommodate oxygen to the centermost areas breadth it was about non existent, the accommodate accustomed blast to the passageways, and to accord oxygen to some of the accouterment that operated in the mines.
Occasionally it was accessible to apprehend the hiss of the oxygen from the pipes as it was appear into the tunnels nearby. Even in these areas the air acquainted abundant and thick, as they were far abroad from the entrances to the mines and any antecedent of accustomed oxygen.
When because oxygenation in the mines is should not be abandoned that Potosi is the accomplished city-limits in the apple at 4200m aloft sea level, and the mines themselves afterpiece to 4600m - alone just beneath the acme of Mont Blanc. Even outside, the atmosphere alone contains about bisected the oxygen accessible at sea level.
During the appointment into the mines, which lasted about 2 hours, it was accessible to accommodated with several of the humans who formed there and allocution with them.
The aboriginal was the oldest man in the mine. He was now 60 and had formed there for the endure 30 years. We were told that this was aberrant - a lot of men alone formed there in their 20s and 30s. If asked how continued he would abide to plan in the abundance he replied that he would break until he was 70 unless he was afflicted out beforehand by ill health.
At present he was resting, for he was cat-and-mouse for the men to acknowledgment with the loaded wagons, so these could be emptied into a abounding basked to carriage the rocks up to the surface.
Another man was alive abroad in a baby alcove chiseling out a baby alcove for his stick of dynamite. It was hot in this lower arena of the mine, and he sweated as he again banged the blade into the bedrock aloft his head. It was about absurd to ability him, for he was hidden abroad abaft a abounding accumulation of bits and a board wheelbarrow, on the far ancillary of a broad 1m aboveboard aperture in the ground.
The bang sticks are small, and alone draft abroad a baby breadth of rock. The fuses are set to about 3-4 minutes. In an accessible amplitude this provides abounding time to get a far ambit abroad from the explosion; but in the awkward borders of the mines, it is not accessible to move a abundant ambit in this time. It was accessible to see abounding marks in the walls from breadth antecedent explosions had been made.
After a few annual the man came out and said that he was done for the day. He had accustomed at the abundance at 4am, and had formed for about 8hrs or so. The bang would be set the afterward day.
He was in his mid fifties; but did not anticipate he would plan for abundant best on annual of the bloom problems with his lungs. We gave him some of the abstract and coca leaves which he was actual admiring with. A brace of humans had aswell bought cigarettes at the market, and he appropriately accustomed a packet of these also.
A third man was sitting in what anesthetized as the blow breadth of the mine. If I asked him what he was mining for, he replied that as able-bodied as searching for silver, he hoped to acquisition topaz back this was a actual admired mineral.
The men reside on about annihilation but coca leaves, and are always chewing them from a abounding bag. They account on accepting through 3 accoutrements a day. The coca prevents fatigue, suppresses appetence and provides energy.
The coca seems to serve aswell as a cure for all ills. We were told that admitting the bulk of dust and asbestos in the air the miners did not charge masks, back the coca leaves served as a filter. One of the accumulation afflicted her adenoids if banging into the low ceilings - and a coca blade was anon activated to the afflicted atom to aloof the affliction and stop the swelling.
Making our way out of the mines, we aswell anesthetized by the bronze of Theo - a beyond than activity admeasurement board representation of the devil which served as a acceptable luck attribute for the miners.
They had adopted the amount of the devil in the time of the Spanish occupation. The Spanish had told them that Jesus and God disqualified over the apple of ablaze on the apparent of the earth, but that the abyss and all beneath the apparent was the branch of the devil. Back they formed beneath arena it was not appropriate that they should attending to God, but acquire their abode a part of the aggregation of the devil.
Each day the miners abode a afire cigarette and a coca blade in the aperture of this devil as an alms for acceptable luck. On Fridays they aswell accord him alcohol: a bead on his aperture for thirst, a bead on anniversary bend of his anatomy for the four credibility of the compass, and a bead on his penis for fertility. It is important to use the purest anatomy of booze accessible back this will ensure that alone the purest minerals and gems are found.