Coal mines in the Kempen basin

Houthalen is the last mine that opend its doors in the Kempen coal basin. Only the main building and the two steel headframes were preserved.

The "Charbonnages André Dumont-sous Asch" is the full name of the Waterschei mine—a tribute to Professor Dumont, the geologist who discovered the coal layers in As.

A tangle of railways ran through the Limburg coal region, transporting millions of tons of coal to ports and blast furnaces. The coal wagons have disappeared, but old stations and tracks remind us of the busy traffic of yesteryear.

Over a century ago, in 1917, the coal mine of Winterslag was the first Kempen mine to open its gates.

With its two headframes, water towers, bathing rooms, coal washeries and unloading floors, the Beringen coal mine is the most complete mining site in the Belgian coal region Limburg.

To export the millions of tons of coal produced in one of the seven Limburg mines, a coal railway line zigzagged from one coal mine to another.

When Limburg became the El Dorado of Belgium at the beginning of the 20th century, coal mines sprang up like mushrooms. In their wake, garden suburbs and engineers' and directors' homes were built.

At the place where the Leuven professor of geology and mining, André Dumont dug up the Limburg soil from 1901 to find coal, a monument commemorates his find.