Bois du Cazier

The Bois du Cazier was a coal mine in Marcinelle, near Charleroi, in Belgium which today is preserved as an industrial heritage site. It is best known as the location of a major mining disaster in August 1956 in which 262 men, including a large number of Italian labourers, were killed. Aside from memorials to the disaster, the site features a small woodland park, preserved headframes and buildings, as well as an Industrial Museum and Glass Museum. The museum features on the European Route of Industrial Heritage and is one of the four Walloon mining sites listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2012.

The history of coal mining on the site of the Bois du Cazier dates back to a concession awarded by royal decree on 30 September 1822; a transcription error caused the name of the site to be changed from Bois de Cazier. After 1898, the site was owned by the charbonnages d'Amercœur company and operated by the Société anonyme du Charbonnage du Bois du Cazier. The site had two mine shafts reaching 765 metres (2,510 ft) and 1,035 metres (3,396 ft) deep. A third shaft, known as the Foraky shaft, was begun in the mid-1950s. By 1955, the mine produced 170,557 tonnes (167,863 long tons; 188,007 short tons) of coal annually and employed a total of 779 workers, many of whom were not Belgian but migrant workers from Italy and elsewhere. They were housed by the mining companies, which in reality meant they moved into Nissen huts in former prisoner of war camps in the region. On the 8 August 1956, a major mining accident occurred and a fire destroyed the mine; 262 workers of 12 nationalities were killed. In the aftermath of the disaster, Italian immigration stopped and mining safety regulations were revised all across Europe and a Mines Safety Commission established. Full production at the Bois du Cazier resumed the following year. The company was liquidated in January 1961 and the mine finally closed in December 1967. It was listed as a national monument on 28 May 1990 and opened as a museum in 2002.

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