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The Courrières mine disaster, Europe's worst mining accident, caused the death of 1,099 miners (including many children) in Northern France on 10 March 1906. This disaster was surpassed only by the Benxihu Colliery accident in China on April 26, 1942, which killed 1,549 miners. A coaldust explosion, the cause of which is not known with certainty, devastated a coal mine operated by the ''Compagnie des mines de houille de Courrières'' (founded in 1852) between the villages of Méricourt (404 people killed), Sallaumines (304 killed), Billy-Montigny (114 people killed), and Noyelles-sous-Lens (102 people killed) about 2 km (1 mi) to the east of Lens, in the Pas-de-Calais ''département'' (about 220 km, or 140 miles, north of Paris). A large explosion was heard shortly after 06:30 on the morning of Saturday 10 March 1906. An elevator cage at Shaft 3 was thrown to the surface, damaging pit-head workings; windows and roofs were blown out on the surface at Shaft 4; an elevator cage raised at Shaft 2 contained only dead or unconscious miners. == Initial cause == 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. However it has never been ascertained what caused the initial ignition of the coal dust. Two main causes have been hypothesized: * An accident during the handling of mining explosives. * Ignition of methane by the naked flame of a miner's lamp. There is evidence favoring both these hypotheses. 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. Many workers in the mine used lamps with naked flames (as opposed to the more expensive Davy lamps), despite the risk of gas explosions. As Monsieur Delafond, General Inspector of Mines, put it in his report: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Courrières mine disaster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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