This article was first published in the December 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
These limestone quarries in Minya, Egypt, may be one of the world's most dangerous work environments. Obvious hazards include the stonecutters and drivers speeding through clouds of dust, but the chief killer is the limestone itself. "In Egypt, we lack industrial hygiene," says Medhat Kalliny, assistant professor of family and community medicine at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, who has researched Egyptian mines. "Workers inhale a lot of dust. This contains high levels of silica so it can cause silicosis."
Silicosis infiltrates the lungs, turning normal tissue into fibrosis, thereby reducing the worker's breathing capacity.
"You will have a cough, a shortness of breath, inability to do physical work," says Kalliny, adding that silicosis can cause heart damage, known as pulmonary hypertension. And it is incurable. The only solution lies in preventative measures. "If you find a worker wearing a mask then it will just be a regular surgical mask. For this kind of dust exposure you need to be wearing more advanced equipment."
Things are slowly changing. Following the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, with the assistance of local organisation Wadi el Nil, the quarry workers formed a union, turning a threatened daily wage reduction into a pay rise of five Egyptian lira.
Wadi el Nil also helps the wives of quarrymen no longer able to work to set up micro-businesses to support their families. But what is really needed, Kalliny says, is government regulation of health and safety. "In the west there are permissible exposure limits," he explains. "We don't have such a thing in Egypt."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
