Work on identifying the 17 unidentified victims of the Bois du Cazier disaster in Marcinelle, near Charleroi, will not be finalized in time for the annual commemorations on August 8 as had been mentioned earlier, the Bois du Cazier Museum’s spokesperson said on Thursday.
The extensive research, begun in Autumn 2021, has been progressing in stages. A meeting has been planned for late August to cross-check information from the various experts involved in the project.
Among the 262 persons who died in the 8 August 1956 mining disaster, 17 could not be formally identified. This was mainly due to the state of degradation of the bodies and because identification techniques were less advanced at the time, based as they were, almost exclusively, on personal belongings and on certain physical characteristics.
The current identification work, based on modern techniques, is the result of requests from the families of several victims. It involves, in particular, the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) service of the federal police, which is responsible for organizing the identification chain.
Despite the resources deployed, the experts were doubtful at the start of the process that satisfactory results could be achieved, given the number of years that have elapsed since the disaster.
Twelve Italians, two Belgians, one German, one Algerian and one Greek national are among the still unidentified miners.
