Indonesia’s asbestos ‘time bomb’

This photograph taken on October 24, 2017 shows Sriyono, who suffers from asbestosis - scarring of the lungs from breathing in asbestos fibres, in front of his house in Cibinong, West Java province. -AFP

JAKARTA: The symptoms were mild and seemingly innocuous at first: mostly coughing and fatigue. But it wasn’t long before Sriyono got a grim diagnosis -- he had asbestosis -- an incurable scarring of the lungs that often leads to cancer.

It was caused by decades of inhaling asbestos fibres at the factory where the 44-year-old still works outside the sprawling capital Jakarta.