Bois du Cazier

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Headframes of the Bois du Cazier
Rescue group with oxygen equipment

Bois du Cazier was a Belgian coal mine near Marcinelle in Hainaut . The mine gained notoriety in 1956 as a result of the greatest mine disaster in Belgian history.

Mine disaster

On the morning of August 8, 1956, a fire broke out in the Saint-Charles shaft at a depth of 975 meters . Due to a chain of operating errors, a hunt that was only partially pushed onto the conveyor cage was pressed against the shaft wall when it was driven out. This tore an electric cable, an oil pipe and a compressed air hose. The Saint-Charles shaft was the penetrating weather shaft of the mine. The oil ignited due to the short circuit that occurred when the cable was torn. Due to the fresh weather that came in, the fire could spread quickly, and the smoke was also drawn into the pit, so that many miners suffocated.

One of the first of the rescue team, the Italian Angelo Berto, called out when leaving the pit: “Tutti cadaveri”, “All dead”. The accident claimed 262 lives of twelve nationalities. 204 women became widows and 417 children lost their father. 136 Italians were among the dead; 26 of the crashed miners came from the small village of Manopello in Abruzzo alone . The immigration of Italians to Belgium then ceased almost completely.

The main causes of the disaster were outdated equipment and poorly trained personnel. As a result, the safety regulations for mines in Belgium were tightened. Two years after the accident, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) decreed that all mines in Wallonia that did not comply with the new regulations must be closed. The Bois du Cazier colliery was closed in 1967.

Today there is a memorial and a mining museum with access to the coal mine. In 2012 the facility was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites together with three other Walloon mines .

  • Headframes

  • Bois du Cazier 2.jpg

  • Mine area and dump

  • Bois du Cazier 4.jpg

Web links

Commons : Bois du Cazier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Episodes of Marcinelle. In: www.spiegel.de. Retrieved August 8, 2016 .
  2. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Center: Major Mining Sites of Wallonia

Coordinates: 50 ° 22 ′ 50.7 "  N , 4 ° 26 ′ 34"  E