In China’s emerging high-dust industries, the allure of higher wages draws many young workers into the business. However, for them, exposure to lethal dust has led to an unexpected enemy: pneumoconiosis. The disease, devastating lungs and lives, afflicts young workers like He Sheng, Tao Xiaogang, and Li Xiaobing — all born in the 1990s — who cut quartz, drill stone, and shape countertops with little protection. They now grapple with the debilitating reality of stage 3 pneumoconiosis — each breath a painful reminder of a job they took to support their families, but which may now be their undoing.

Contributions: Dong Kaiyan