1956
Marcinelle, 1956: the Italian miners who never came back up
On 8 August 1956 a fire at the Bois du Cazier mine in Belgium killed 262 miners. 136 of them were Italian.
After the Second World War, Italy and Belgium signed an agreement in 1946: Italy sent workers for the coal mines and Belgium sold Italy coal. Between 1946 and 1956 more than 140,000 Italians went down Belgian mines. Many lived in huts and faced discrimination and dangerous conditions.
On the morning of 8 August 1956, shortly after eight, a misunderstanding at the surface sent a lift cage into a steel beam in the shaft of the Bois du Cazier mine at Marcinelle. The cage cut through a high-voltage cable, an oil pipe and a compressed-air line. The sparks set fire to the oil and the wooden supports, and smoke and toxic gas filled the tunnels.
Of the 274 people who had gone down that day, only 12 survived. 262 miners of twelve nationalities died; 136 were Italian. It was the worst tragedy of Italian emigration in Europe.
Since 2001, 8 August has been Italy’s National Day of the Sacrifice of Italian Labour in the World, and the European Union marks it as a day for victims of workplace accidents. The Bois du Cazier mine is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Sources: Orizzonte Scuola — 70 anni fa la tragedia di Marcinelle
