Courrières mine disaster

It is generally agreed that the majority of the deaths and destruction were caused by an explosion of coal dust which swept through the mine.

Blasting was being done in the area believed to be the source of the explosion, after initial attempts to widen a gallery had been abandoned the previous day for lack of success.

As Monsieur Delafond, General Inspector of Mines, put it in his report: The primary cause of the Courrières catastrophe could not be determined with absolute certainty.

[4]Rescue attempts began quickly on the morning of the disaster, but were hampered by the lack of trained mine rescuers in France at that time, and by the scale of the disaster: some two-thirds of the miners in the mine at the time of the explosion perished, while many survivors suffered from the effects of gas inhalation.

There were many accusations that the Compagnie des mines de Courrières was deliberately delaying the reopening of blocked shafts to prevent coalface fires (and hence to save the coal seams): more recent studies tend to consider such claims as exaggerated.

[citation needed] The mine was unusually complex for its time, with the different pitheads being interconnected by underground galleries on multiple levels.

[10] The first public appeal for funds to help the victims and their families was established the day after the explosion by Le Réveil du Nord, a Lille daily newspaper.

And would political action be something else than the sad game of ambitions and vanities if it didn't propose to itself the liberation of the workers' people, the organisation of a better life for those who work?

The different appeals were eventually subsumed by an official fund—itself established by a law enacted only four days after the explosion—and a total of 750,000 francs was raised.

[citation needed] Clemenceau's first visit was filled with optimism and ex-president Jean Casimir-Perier stated that "I have the strongest hope that our discussion... will lead to an understanding which is desirable for all.