Survivors
About six hundred miners were able to reach the surface during the hours immediately after the explosion. Many were severely burned and/or suffering from the effects of mine gases.
A group of thirteen survivors, known later as the rescapés, was found by rescuers on 30 March, twenty days after the explosion. They had survived at first by eating the food which the victims had taken underground for their lunch, later by slaughtering one of the mine horses. The two eldest (39 and 40 years old) were awarded the Légion d'honneur, the other eleven (including three younger than 18 years of age) received the Médaille d'or du courage. A final survivor was found on 4 April.
Read more about this topic: Courrières Mine Disaster
Famous quotes containing the word survivors:
“I want to celebrate these elms which have been spared by the plague, these survivors of a once flourishing tribe commemorated by all the Elm Streets in America. But to celebrate them is to be silent about the people who sit and sleep underneath them, the homeless poor who are hauled away by the city like trash, except it has no place to dump them. To speak of one thing is to suppress another.”
—Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)
“I believe that all the survivors are mad. One time or another their madness will explode. You cannot absorb that much madness and not be influenced by it. That is why the children of survivors are so tragic. I see them in school. They don’t know how to handle their parents. They see that their parents are traumatized: they scream and don’t react normally.”
—Elie Wiesel (b. 1928)