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(text and pictures by FdW)
In april 2008, on staying in Midelt and Mibladen 4 days, we also visited Aouli. The old mining town of Aouli can be reached through the beautiful Moulouya river valley from Midelt. Everyone says that the road from Midelt to Aouli is too bad for normal vehicles (and only reacheable by 4x4), but it is easy to drive there with a normal car... To get the famous view from the top of the hill to the Aouli mining-complex, you have to drive a 4x4 up the hill, or walk... If you walk, don't try this from june-september or carry 10 liters of water ;-)
From the river up to the mining ghost town on top of the north side of the hill can be done by car, by foot via the road, or by foot via a 365-step stone stairway... one step per day and you will make it, make your choice :-)
The mining-complex at the river is beautiful to watch. The river can rise a few meters here, so all the doors and windows of the buildings are closed with solid steel plates. I have a 154-page book here on the mining of Mibladen and Aouli, which has some pictures and stories in it, of the water rising so high that buildings were torn away from the river shore (so also in 1963)... Also dumps with ore were washed away... I have copies of a book at home "Histoire des mines de plomb d'Aouli et Mibladen 1923-1975", 154 pages, written by Alain Debray. That book is rich in detailed information on Aouli and Mibladen. On the mining, the machines used, the festivities/culture around the mines etc. I cannot copy all the more than hundreds pages of information and pictures here, but really interested people can email me for information...
Mibladen and Aouli were important for Morocco. I was told that Midelt was the second city connected by electricity in Morocco (first was Casablanca), and one of the first connected by railway. The Aouli-mine needed a lot of power for those days in Morocco, so first special lines from Midelt to Mibladen (and from there 22 km (22.000 volts) from Mibladen to Aouli), and later a waterpowered electricity plant was built especially for Aouli in Sidi-Said. Most of the material to start the mine, was brought by boat and train all the way from Spain and France. In the first years of the mine, the region was 'not safe'... It is said that in daytime Morocco owned the region, and in nighttime Algeria. So the mine was guarded by the military. That slowed the startup of the mine significantly. Until the second world war the mine was worked with interruptions from lack of money, multiple change of ownerships, lack of modern techniques and problems caused by snow and water destroying roads, buildings and powerlines. In 1939 the powerlines were broken because of a snow-storm. Also the second world war stopped production temporary, because foreign employees were enlisted... Only after the second world war the mine came into full production. The major vein worked in was "Filon Henri" (sometimes over 25 meters wide). One shaft ended 110 meters below the Moulaya-river... In the book is a lot of data on "production", but that data can be interpreted in more ways (ore production, lead-production etc), so I will not write those numbers here. But when you view the dumps, you can see how massive the production was here... On page 93 of the book is says that the combined Mibladen-Aouli-mine employed 2.500 persons (does not say in what year). In Aouli 913 persons, of which 730 underground, 51 in the laverie/flotation, 51 in the 'ateliers', 35 in the electricity plant and 8 for 'services generaux'. 82 of those employees were from 'Europe'. In total the mine was locally generating income (with children, family etc) for 500 europeans and 7.000 moroccans (!).
There is still lead-mining going on here. Artisanal-style. Some families are mining lead by hand, for which they get about 10 dirham (1 euro) per kilo lead if it's 1st quality. The children here offer galenite as souvenir by the road... Begin your tour here to see what we saw.
Also see:
http://www.mineralienatlas.de/,
http://theses.uqac.ca/ (pdf),
http://www.springerlink.com/,
http://www.mineralium.com/,
http://www.smartminerals.com/,
http://www.echo62.com/,
http://echomidelt.blogspot.com/,
http://midelt2005.spaces.live.com/,
http://www.flickr.com/,
http://lexicorient.com/,
Mindat.org on this location.
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