Saturday, 18 February 2017

REMEMBRANCE SERVICE IN HONOUR OF MAZARRÓN MINING VICTIMS


Mazarrón will remember the victims of mining accidents Sunday 19th February, at an event organized by the City Council that will take place from midday next to the monument located at the roundabout by access to the Avenida de Las Moreras.

The event will begin with the performance of the piece "Andante" by J. Adson, in charge of the Music Band of the "Maestro Eugenio Calderón" School. Next, the Mayor, Alicia Jiménez, will address a few words to those present, before handing over to the Parish Priest of San Andrés y San Antonio, Francisco Fernández   . 

Afterwards, Maravillas Silva will recite a poem in homage to the victims who died in the mining accidents registered in Mazarrón.

After the interventions, the Mayor, the Parish Priest and members of the Municipal Corporation that are attending the ceremony will proceed to deposit a laurel wreath next to the monument. This gesture will be accompanied by the chords of the Music Band with the interpretation of "Andante y Maestoso" by L. Maurer. 

The event will conclude with a third musical interpretation, the one of the subject "Allegro" of J. Adson.

This event was incorporated, last year, to the calendar of institutional acts of the Municipality and joins others as the tribute to the Mazarroneros victims in the concentration camps of Mauthausen, whose memory takes place every December 6 in the Jardín de la Paz de Mazarrón

Accident in the María Elena Well

The reason that the month of February is the date chosen to claim this tribute must be sought in what was the greatest tragedy in the mines of Mazarrón.

On February 16, 1893, 28 miners were killed in an accident at the Maria Elena well of the Impensada mine. It was the most tragic of many accidents in the mining hills during the development of the activity developed mainly from the late nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century. The accident at the Maria Elena Well occupied pages of newspapers nationally and even internationally, since among the deceased were engineers and mining officials of European nationality, hired by the company that exploited the mines of Mazarrón.

The numerous losses of that date shocked the people who lived with the constant threat of having to register a new accident. The casualties continued to occur punishing those families who worked in the mines, according to the chroniclers, in situations of precarious work. Deaths in accidents were later added to deaths due to diseases such as silicosis, a lung disease that affected many miners.


More than a century later and 50 years after the ceasing the mining activity, neighbours and relatives of those who lost their lives or became ill from work in the mine asked the City Council to pay homage to those victims.

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