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When Kuwait was on fire, they saved the day
Oil workers battle a fire in Kuwait in 1991. It took nearly an entire year to cap the oil wells that were set on fire by Saddam Hussein's forces during the Gulf War.
Sebastiao Salgado photographed the workers, their faces stained with oil. His latest book, "Kuwait: A Desert on Fire," was recently published by Taschen.
Many of the wellheads had to be repaired or replaced. "It was a bit like trying to put a new faucet on a broken water pipe -- without turning off the water," Salgado wrote in his book.
Salgado recalls intense heat, toxic fumes and deafening noise. "By the end of each day, my jaws literally ached from the sheer tension of being exposed for hours on end to heat, noise and oil and to the perennial hazard of a major explosion," he said.
"Moving like phantoms through the gloom, covered in oil for hours on end, these men were too close to danger to think of anything but the job at hand," Salgado said.