The Bois du Cazier was coal mine in Marcinelle, Charleroi. It was the scene of a mining disaster on 8 August 1956, when 263 men including 136 migrant Italian labourers lost their lives. The site today hosts a woodland park, memorial to the miners, the pit head, an industry museum and a glass museum. The museum is an Anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.
A concession to mine was given by royal decree on 30 September 1822. A transcription error caused the name of the site to be changed from Bois de Cazier. There were two shafts reaching 765 et 1035 mètres. A third shaft, 'Foraky', was being dug in 1956. At that time (1955), annual production was 170,557 tonnes for a total of 779 workers, many of whom were not Belgian but migrant workers principally from Italy. On the 8 August 1956, a fire destroyed the mine. Full production resumed the following year. The company was liquidated in January 1961, and the mine closed in December 1967.
There is a memorial wall to the disaster and a museum of mining and heavy industry. A workshop explains the art of metal forging. Around the two puits (shafts) the site has been landscaped- allowing views from the slag heaps over Charleroi.
Bois du Cazier is one of coal mines described as UNESCO World Heritage Site of Major Mining Sites of Wallonia.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.