Pneumoconiosis

Zhang Haichao was twenty-eight when he got pneumoconiosis. He was fit and well before he started working at an abrasive-materials factory in Xinmi, not far from Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, where he comes from. On the job, he inhaled a huge amount of dust every day. In the second half of 2007, he began to cough and felt short of breath.

Wu Dengfan, a 40-year-old farmer from Gulang county in Gansu who worked at a gold mine close to the Mongolian border from 1996 to 2006, had a similar experience. “We even preferred not to wear masks inside the mine, because it made breathing even more difficult,” said Wu, who has stage II pneumoconiosis. “When we finished our work and came out of the mine, each of us was completely covered in dust.”