The chips are down for diggers who risk death

ROSLAN Karim makes 10 times more by digging in an illegal mine at night than he used to earn by driving a truck for 10 hours a day.

He digs with blistered hands and crowbar in landfills around the northern Malaysian town of Butterworth. The prize is tantalum, the metal that allows Nokia, Motorola and NEC to make mobile phones small enough to slip into a shirt pocket.

The 21-year-old, and scores like him, can take home 10,000 ringgit (1815) a month - more than a bank manager.

With companies such as Seagate Technology cutting thousands of jobs in Malaysia, Roslan says the money outweighs the risk from exposure to radioactive metals mixed with the tantalum.

"We know it's dangerous, but with so much money literally in the streets, there's no need for second thoughts," he said, standing in a five-foot deep hole. "Whenever we can, we go to the doctor for some antibiotic shots to help protect us." Before the first-ever decline in global mobile phone sales this year, people such as Roslan got up to 10 ringgit a kilo for their hardened, tantalum-rich slag at the start of the year.

Diggers even excavated the foundation of a Proton car showroom until it collapsed, killing three.

Another digger died when a hole caved in. Since then, prices paid by black-market traders have fallen to just 1.30 ringgit a kilo.

Tantalum, a silver-grey metal, remains sought-after for its unrivalled ability to produce smaller, lighter capacitors, which store electrical charges. Demand for it began to rise in the 1970s as companies such as Sony and Philips Electronics developed ever- smaller capacitors for cell phones, cameras and laptop computers. Jobs are harder to find as Malaysia's economic growth is set to slow to 1% this year from 8.3% in 2000, according to the government. Seagate, the top maker of disk drives, shed 4000 jobs in March, feeding the need for diggers to take risks. But the 100,000 or so Butterworth locals face an even bigger risk.

"The digging is bringing up dust of thorium and uranium, exposing the population to higher chances of miscarriages, immune system deficiencies and leukaemia," says Dr Jayabalan Thambyappa. The dust can get into water, food and the air, adds Meenakshi Rahman, legal adviser for the Consumer Association of Penang.

"The impact will be felt years from now."

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