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5 July, 2006
A book authored in part by Paul Lootens, FGTB's Federal Secretary in Belgium, reveals the comprehensive legal maneuvering following the nation's worst mining accident. In August 1956, near the Belgian city of Charleroi, 262 coalminers perished due to equipment failure and subsequent chain of events.
FGTB's Paul Lootens
The aftermath of this tragic worksite story is depicted in a book entitled Tutti Cadaveri: The Trial of the Catastrophe at the Bois du Cazier in Marcinelle by Lootens, also an ICEM vice president, and historians Marie-Louise De Roeck and Julie Urbain. The book’s title, Tutti Cadaveri, comes from the Italian rescuer who, after surfacing from the mine, said, tragically, “All corpses.”
The book takes the reader through the legal wranglings of an employer intent on avoiding guilt over safety shortcomings, and the victims’ families who seek the truth.
On 5 July, some 3,000 people turned out near the Belgian town of Marcinelle, just south of Charleroi, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the country’s worst coal mining tragedy in history. The event occurred in Bois du Cazier, where on 8 August 1956, 262 miners perished in a fiery inferno caused by an electrical blast from a shaft elevator.
The majority at the 5 July event were descendants and friends of 136 Italian miners, who together with the 152 others, died from the fire and subsequent carbon monoxide poisoning when the elevator blocked the flow of fresh air.
The commemoration also was vitalized by trade union members and the colours of the Belgian socialist union FGTB, as well as their comrades from the Italian trade union, Patronato INCA-CGIL.
The commemoration also included the unveiling of a sculpture marking the tragic event, a bronze globe commissioned by INCA-CGIL and made by Italian artist Antonio Nocera. The sculpture sits in front of the main mine shaft, now a museum, in which miners from 12 different nations died in 1956.
A surviving miner in front of Antonio Nacero's sculpture
At Bois du Cazier on the actual day of the 50th anniversary, 8 August, a bell tower clock will ring out 262 times, beginning at 08h00, with the name of each victim read out. At 10h00, flowers will be laid at the monument dedicated to the many accidents occurring at the mine, from 1901 to the 8 August 1956 underground firestorm. At 11h00, a ceremony will occur at the Marcinelle cemetery, and then at 12h30, another commemoration will occur at Bois du Cazier.
The French language book, Tutti Cadavreri, by Lootens, De Roeck and Urbain, was published only on 1 May 2006, but is already in its second printing. It is available from Aden Publishers for €22, and can be ordered by contacting Aden at [email protected], or calling +32 2534 46 61.
More information on the book can also be found here. It can be ordered online here.