The wood of Cazier is old a Charbonnage located at Marcinelle, close to Charleroi in Wallonia (Belgium).

Catastrophe in the mine

The August 8th 1956, this Charbonnage was the theater of the most important mining catastrophe in Belgium caused by a fire, with 262 victims (including 136 Italians, 95 Belgians, 8 Poles, 6 Greeks, 5 Germans, 3 Hungarians, 3 Algerians, 2 French, 1 English, 1 Netherlander, 1 Russian and 1 Ukrainian) out of the 274 men present in the mine.

The drama has a considerable impact in particular for the Italian community: often, the minors Calabrian were engaged by whole villages and the widows are thus numerous in the southern of Italy.

The well St-Charles of SA of Coal mining of the Wood of Cazier was a concession of more than 875 ha, under Marcinelle, Couillet, Loverval and Gerpinnes. The company then occupied 700 basic workers and of surface, the extraction of the coal being divided into three installations day laborers.

At the time, Italy, exchanges labor against coal. In 1956,47 000 Italians work in the mines of Belgium, constituting alone more than 30% of the minors of the country and more than 50% of those of the area of Charleroi.

Currently, the mine is a museum dedicated to the Catastrophe like with the history of the area through the Industrial revolution and of course with coal mining in general.

Unfolding

Towards 8:10, Antonio Iannetta, a encagor, orders with a companion, the increase of coal tip trucks towards surface. Two carriages are badly engaged and remain wedged in a cage with 975 meters. They tear off a beam which divides two electric cables with high voltage, a conduit of oil under pressure and a piping of compressed air.

The Electric arc ignites oil under pulverized pressure spouting out of the broken drain and the woodworks take fire instantaneously. This incident occurring in the shaft for descent of air, the Fire and the toxic Fumée are propagated quickly in all the mine, where men are hidden up to 1.035 meters under ground.

Alarm will be given to 8:25 by a man gone up on the surface.

With 9:10, the winding shaft of the air is unusable. The cables of its cages yield shortly after.

Two people try vainly with 9:30, without equipment, to cut through a path in a side tunnel. The inspection pit is widened only 4:30 later, to discover several corpses.

A forwarding goes down towards 15:00 by the first well and discovers three survivors. The last three survivors will be then discovered by a different team.

The help manage to save some lives the very same day and continue their efforts during two weeks. August 22nd 1956 at 3 a.m., the rescuers will declare by going up “ tutti cadaveri ” (all deaths).

The rescuers of the power station of Frameries, created in 1905 with the coal mining of the Large Feature, took part in the rescue operations.

Consequences

Only ten minors will have survived the tragedy. Italian immigration will feel some and the regulation of the occupational safety will be reinforced as well at the Belgian level as European.

The catastrophe opened the eyes of the Belgian population on the living conditions of the Italian immigrants, literally parked with the foot of the Terril S, in hutments inherited the Second world war.

Three years after the catastrophe, a lawsuit in first authority leads to a general acquittal. In call, only one sorrow will be pronounced, that of the director of work of the Wood of Cazier, Adolphe Calicis, condemned to six months of prison with five years of deferment. In their stop, the judges recall that “the economy, whatever its importance for the general good, cannot claim to choke the other values, the life being the largest good of all the goods and in front of being protected until the most extreme limits. ”

The site of the Wood of Cazier closes its doors later eleven years, in 1967. It has had for summer transformed into museum relating to the coal past of the area.

Commemorations of the catastrophe

In 2006, at the time of the 50e birthday of the catastrophe, various commemorative demonstrations are organized in the name of the duty to remember on the site of the wood of Cazier, which classified and entirely renovated today is at the same time a Mémorial and a museum of the mine.

• La Poste , emits a special stamp carried out according to a drawing of Calisto Peretti, put on sale for the first time on August 5th on the spot of the drama.

• the royal Currency of Belgium striking a coin of a facial value of 10 € on which is represented the profile of minor according to Constantin Meunier in the past used on the coins of 50 centimes Belgian franc, on bottom of a representation of coal mining.
• a book, legal Cazier of Alain Forti and Christian Joosten is especially published at Luc Pire.
• Four exposures are organized:

* legal Cazier , plunges the visitor in the middle of the catastrophe of his premises to its unfolding and its continuations.

* the memory in images recalls realities of the mine through documentary and films of fictions dealing with the subject.

* Augusto To wall, the mine in drawings , 60 drawings on the topic of the mine realized between 1950 and 1962.

* In the intimacy of the memory , exposures of photographs of the Italian artist Marina Cavazza having for subject Italian immigration in coal mining.

• a spectacle, Black Mouths , conceived and put in scene by Small Luc (director of international repute: Parades Disney Paris, Décrocher the Moon 1 2 & 3, Nocturnales, Opening of Crown Macao, Zarabanda), given on the site on August 7th, 2006 recalls through alive tables, of sounds and lights, the history and realities of the mine.
• Various emissions, out of radio and televisions are also programmed.
• on August 8th, a Journée of the Memory is organized with Marcinelle and on the site of the Wood of Cazier.

Museums of the site

In addition to the visit of the site of old coal mining and memorial, the buildings of the site of the Wood of Cazier shelter the permanent collections and the temporary exhibitions of various museums.

• the Espace August 8th, 1956 is dedicated to the history of the mine and the minors, and in particular with the course of the catastrophe.

• the Musée of industry is devoted to the principal industrial sectors: coal mining, the iron and steel industry, the glassmaking, the metal workings, the mechanical engineering and electric, chemistry, printing works, he proposes collections of objects, tools and machines which are referred to it. The social life and the working world are also represented.
• In the Workshops , forging mills and power hammers makes it possible craftsmen to carry out original creations and to carry out demonstrations of the forging bound for the public.
• Since févier 2007, the old lamp-making to which was assistant a new building of glass and steel, accommodates the Musée of glass of Charleroi whose collections propose not only one outline of the important local production of the Belgian glass industry of XIXe and the beginning of the XXéme century, but also of the old parts of all times and source and of creations of glass and contemporary artists and current Masters.

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