Slightly after 6.30 am on Saturday 10 March 1906 an explosion ripped through the Courrières Coal Mine in Pas-de-Calais, northern France, killing 1099 miners, making it the worst mining disaster in European history, and the second worst mining disaster ever, behind the Benxihu Colliery in Liaoning Province, China, which killed 1549 people in 1942. The explosion was caused by the ignition of suspended coal dust within the mine, although the source of ignition was impossible to determine.
Methane and coal dust, both found within coal mines, both potentially explosive when they come into contact with naked flames. Coal is formed when buried organic material, principally wood, in heated and pressurised, forcing off hydrogen and oxygen (i.e. water) and leaving more-or-less pure carbon. Methane is formed by the decay of organic material within the coal. There is typically little pore-space within coal, but the methane can be trapped in a liquid form under pressure. To make matters worse, the limited oxygen supply in mines often means that fires will involve incomplete combustion, in which all the oxygen is used up, but instead of forming carbon dioxide forms the much more deadly carbon dioxide, with potentially lethal consequences for anyone in the mine.
The explosion was so violent that a lift in one of the mine shafts was blown to the surface, damaging the pit head building. The roof and windows of a building above another shaft were blown out, while a third lift was raised to the surface, but contained only dead and unconscious miners.
Initial rescue attempts were hindered by a lack of specialist mine rescue teams. Two thirds of the miners working at the mine were killed by the disaster, with many more injured or suffering from the effects of gas inhalation, this left few people locally who were capable of entering the mine to look for survivors, until rescue teams began arriving from Paris, Belgium, and Germany on 12 March. These rescue workers were further hampered by poor mapping of the mines, with sixteen losing their lives during the work.
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Around 500 miners made it back to the surface in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, many of them badly injured. The slow progress made by the rescue workers proved to be highly distressing to the local communities, with rumours circulating that the company was prioritising protecting the coal face before looking for survivors, with only 194 bodies being brought out during March. Surprisingly, on 30 March 1906, a party of 13 living minors was found, who had survived by eating bark from crossbeams and a dead mine horse, and drinking water dripping from the walls. A further survivor was found on 4 April.
The Courrières Mine disaster was one of the first major incidents to be extensively covered by the French press, with newspapers competing to provide detailed coverage. The technology used in France at the time meant that papers did not generally include pictures, but (as with other news stories) postcards showing images of the disaster were widely available. Many newspapers also mounted appeals to raise funds for the victims of the disaster, as did at least some of the postcard-makers.
The disaster provoked a strike across the mines of northern France, calling for better pay and conditions, which threatened the country's coal-dependent industries. The French Interior Minister, Georges Clémenceau, met with the miner's leaders and tried to persuade them to call off the strike. When this failed, he sent troops to try to force the miners back to work, resulting in a series of violent clashes, in which an army officer was killed by a thrown stone. After 55 days, following the arrival of further troops, the strike was called off.
