CERRO RICO DE POTOSI, Bolivia — “There isn’t a man on this mountain who wants his children to work here,” Pablo Choque says as he prepares for his shift as a driller.

Above us towers 15,800-foot Cerro Rico — literally the “Rich Mountain” — the greatest silver deposit ever known.

Locals have another name for it: The Mountain that Eats Men.

In its 17th century heyday, armies of indigenous and African slaves died here as the ore they mined helped keep the ailing Spanish empire afloat.

Four centuries later, thousands of men like Choque continue to risk life and limb deep in the bowels of Cerro Rico as they search for its last veins of silver, zinc and tin.

The miners rarely report accidents to the labor ministry, and there are no comprehensive official mortality statistics.

But the tales of death are everywhere.

The local paper is a good place to verify the horror. “Detonation leaves miner’s body in pieces” and “Boy miner, 14, dies after falling 60 meters down chute” read two typical recent headlines.

According to Felipe Calizaya, a Bolivian professor of mining engineering at the University of Utah, there is little doubt that the mountain remains one of the most deadly places in the world to be a miner.

“The most basic safety procedures do not exist at Cerro Rico,” he told GlobalPost.

While many die from accidents, the greatest toll comes from silicosis, a lung disease caused by breathing in rock particles.

The clock begins to tick the day a miner first enters the mountain. The sickness kills most miners before they reach 40, Calizaya says.

The respiratory problems are compounded by temperatures above 90 degrees Farenheit deep inside the mountain, with the miners emerging, soaked in sweat, at the end of a shift into the cold mountain air.

Choque’s job as a driller is the most perilous. The risk of cave-ins, rocks falling, and drills suddenly bouncing backwards off a lode of harder rock are ever present.

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