More sad, sad news from Belgium.
It seems there has been a terrible accident in a coal mine in Belgium:
Close by the small town of Marcinelle is the mine called Amercoeur, the "Bitter Heart." There one morning last week, 302 miners-115 of them Belgians, 139 Italians-dropped 3,105 ft. underground in their steel-cage elevators to their daily jobs at the coal face. Above ground the miners' families, mostly poor Italians imported with their husbands from overpopulated Italy, went about their chores.
At 10 a.m., the women who had their radios on heard a chilling announcement cut into the Belgian broadcasting system's light-music program: there was trouble at the Bitter Heart, and fire engines, asbestos suits, fire extinguishers were needed. Outside, a 300-ft. plume of bilious-looking yellow smoke was already rising languidly above the mine shaft.
(...) At the pit head only six men had got out. One gasped a dreadful story: he smelled bitter smoke, dashed with five friends for the elevator, made it to the surface only seconds ahead of a belch of yellow smoke and rearing flames. Apparently a horse-drawn cart had jumped its rails in one of the galleries, tearing into a high-tension cable, setting off a short circuit, explosion and fire.
(...) When night fell, 261 miners were still entombed. Perhaps that first day some still clung to life in small holes and alcoves, somehow fending off the flames, floods and noxious gases from the fires high above them. No one knew. Above ground, great searchlights showed up huddles of women now too tired to weep, their babies asleep with their toys. "Coal Mining! Not even the devil would do it!" one old man croaked hoarsely, when morning broke once more across Belgium's Bitter Heart.
What? This happened in 1956?! Ohhh... that explains the reference to an overpopulated Italy and the... unusual redaction of the article. Sorry.
Close by the small town of Marcinelle is the mine called Amercoeur, the "Bitter Heart." There one morning last week, 302 miners-115 of them Belgians, 139 Italians-dropped 3,105 ft. underground in their steel-cage elevators to their daily jobs at the coal face. Above ground the miners' families, mostly poor Italians imported with their husbands from overpopulated Italy, went about their chores.
At 10 a.m., the women who had their radios on heard a chilling announcement cut into the Belgian broadcasting system's light-music program: there was trouble at the Bitter Heart, and fire engines, asbestos suits, fire extinguishers were needed. Outside, a 300-ft. plume of bilious-looking yellow smoke was already rising languidly above the mine shaft.
(...) At the pit head only six men had got out. One gasped a dreadful story: he smelled bitter smoke, dashed with five friends for the elevator, made it to the surface only seconds ahead of a belch of yellow smoke and rearing flames. Apparently a horse-drawn cart had jumped its rails in one of the galleries, tearing into a high-tension cable, setting off a short circuit, explosion and fire.
(...) When night fell, 261 miners were still entombed. Perhaps that first day some still clung to life in small holes and alcoves, somehow fending off the flames, floods and noxious gases from the fires high above them. No one knew. Above ground, great searchlights showed up huddles of women now too tired to weep, their babies asleep with their toys. "Coal Mining! Not even the devil would do it!" one old man croaked hoarsely, when morning broke once more across Belgium's Bitter Heart.
What? This happened in 1956?! Ohhh... that explains the reference to an overpopulated Italy and the... unusual redaction of the article. Sorry.