Dark Canary

Soon to be historic images... Sixty years after its closure in 1965, the asbestos factory in Canari, Corsica, will be destroyed and its quarries «made safe» from this year onwards. After a vein was discovered in 1898, a Swiss working for the ETERNIT company spotted a real deposit in the 1920s. By 1940, millions of tons of rock had been extracted from the site by ETERNIT subsidiary SMA (Société minière de l'amiante), disfiguring the region. Once the asbestos had been isolated, the crushed rock filled the bays and coves of western Cap Corse, transforming them into black beaches, such as the famous Nonza beach.

You have just read a photo essay published in our print editionLe Regard Libre N°117).

To Bernard Léchot's previous photo essays