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When Sebastião Salgado was finally allowed to visit Serra Pelada, in September 1986, after six years of refusal from the Brazilian military authorities, he was not prepared for the astonishing spectacle that awaited him on the edge of the Amazon forest, on the battered confines of this mountain. peeled: a gaping hole, 200 meters deep and wide, where tens of thousands of almost naked men swarm. Half carry bags weighing up to 40 kilos up wooden ladders, the others slide down the muddy slopes to plunge back into the dirty maw of the mine. Their bodies and faces are ocher, oxidized by iron ore …