Nigeria's stone crushers

The enterprising stone crushers surrounding Nigeria's capital, Abuja, can be considered the new agents of weathering, reports the BBC News website's Senan Murray.

They spend their days breaking down hard granite to sell to builders - achieving in hours what would take nature centuries.

But the work is really hard and fraught with health hazards.

It is their cheap rocks that feed the voracious construction industry in central Nigeria's fast-growing urban areas.

An industrious rock crusher can earn between $23 and $31 per month.

In a country where more than 70% of the population lives on less than $1 a day, any regular income of $31 can be quite literally, life-saving.

This heap is the result of two days serious labour. With two more piles of a similar size, the load could fetch $5.

Pausing to wipe dust and sweat from her face, 18-year-old Diana Musa explains that she has been crushing stones in Abuja for five years.

Her money is used to send my four brothers to school, she says.

I can not go to school because there isn't enough money to send all of us.

I know that my brothers need the education more than me. When they finish their studies and get better jobs, they will take care of us."

Diana works together with her widowed grandmother, who hands her stones to be smashed.

Anna Dogo, 68, has been doing this job for 13 years. Sometimes, when we are not lucky, we stay for a month without sales, but when we are lucky and this does not happen very often . we make 2,000 naira ($15).

In my time, we didn go to school because my parents didn't think education was useful. I cann't make that mistake today.

Stone crushing not a nice job,she says looking down at her blistered hands.

I have to suffer so that my grandchildren don't have to suffer as much as I am doing now.

Her daughter, who usually works with them, is recovering from a bronchial infection as a result of inhaling dust from the crushed rocks.

None of the women wear gear to protect them from flying shards liable to hit them in the face....................

I feel deep sorry  to read this news today. God bless everybody there.

More details, please visit bbc's website.