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Prensa
Latina |
First Mining Museum to Be Opened in Cuba
by Prensa Latina
Posted: Feb 19, 2005 14:39 UTC
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PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba (PL) - An old copper mine in this Cuban western province, closed since 1997, will become the island´s first mining museum.
The place, declared National Industrial Heritage (the only of its kind in Cuba) was at one time was the island´s most productive and rich copper pit and it still shows all the main components of a mine.
Discovered at the beginning of the 20th Century, the mine went 552 meters deep and its galleries stretched out horizontally for over 120 kilometers underground.
Eleven million tons of copper were dug out from the guts of the mine until it exhausted and production stopped, as a result of overexploitation, excessive expenses in energy and high temperatures.
Specialists in museology are now carrying out preservation works. In a second stage, they will try to save other relevant elements of the past to reopen the place as a museum, Iraida Hernandez, head of the local government told Prensa Latina.
She also said that a large process of transformation started since it was closed.
After an intensive reforestation work, 50 percent of Pinar del Rio landscape is covered by forest. The region is also well-known for producing Cuba´s best tobacco, while the people cherish their traditions and history.
Despite transformations in the past five years, the inhabitants of Minas de Matahambre, the town where the mine was, preserve the memories and prints of the mining tradition as one of their most valuable treasures.
ef/tac/ap/ool
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