Aberfan

[steve_b_wales]

54 years ago today, at 09:13, so many lives were lost. 

[30-6]

I can remember next door but one neighbour coming from the colliery and going up to there.

[Walker570]

Yes, remember it well as I had just returned from a Police Mobile Column exercise and the next crew got sent directly down to Aberfan to support local police.

Very tragic but those mates returning said they could not get over the response from local people in such terrible times. They all pulled together as a community.

[harrycatcat1]

At 9.15 am on Friday, October 21, 1966, a waste tip above the mining village of Aberfan began to slide down the mountainside, firstly destroying a farm cottage and killing all its occupants.  It then approached Pantglas Junior School, where the children had only just returned to their classes after singing All Things Bright and Beautiful at their morning assembly.  The slide then engulfed the school and about 20 houses in the village, killing 144 people, including 116 school children.

Workers up in the mountain had seen the slide start, but could not raise the alarm because their telephone cable had been stolen and down in the village, everybody heard the noise, but could see nothing, because of thick fog.

News of the tragedy travelled fast and hundreds of people stopped what they were doing and headed to Aberfan to try and help with the rescue. It was futile, as nobody was rescued alive after 11am and it was nearly a week before all the bodies were recovered.   

On Mynydd Merthyr, directly above Aberfan, several tips containing millions of cubic metres of mining debris from the Merthyr Vale Colliery had been deposited over the years, onto highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs.  The NCB's area management had been made aware of the concerns regarding the tipping of spoil above the primary school, but these were largely ignored.  In the days leading up to the disaster, there had been substantial bursts of heavy rain, which had caused 3–6 metres of subsidence on one of the tips.  This then led to more than 150,000 cubic metres of debris breaking away and flowing downhill at high speed.

On 26th October 1966, a tribunal was appointed to inquire into the causes of and circumstances relating to the Aberfan disaster, which was chaired by Welsh barrister and Privy Councillor Lord Justice Edmund Davies.

The Tribunal's report found that

* The blame for the disaster rested entirely with the National Coal Board, and their "total absence of a tipping policy"

* Repeated warnings about the dangerous condition of the tip had been ignored. 

* The tips had never been surveyed and were continuously being added to in a chaotic and unplanned manner. The disregard for the unstable geological conditions and the NCB's failure to act after previous smaller slides were found to have been major factors that contributed to the catastrophe.

[Lloyd90]

May they all rest peacefully 😞 

[Smokersmith]

Before my time, but the episiode of the Crown that dealt with this showed the horror .....

[ant1]

i remember watching a program about the aberfan disaster years ago, but was has stuck with me, was just not the fact that so many children died(116) but the way the community was treated by the national coal board. and the fact that the charity commission planned before any payment was made to the parents that each case should be looked at to ascertain if the parents had been close to their children and that one parent might suffer more than another.

[JTaylor91]

1 hour ago, Smokersmith said:

Before my time, but the episiode of the Crown that dealt with this showed the horror .....

I’m ashamed to admit that until watching that episode I had never heard of it. You would think it would be covered in school.

[enfieldspares]

I remember it on the news listening to it. Being born in 1957 I was in 1966 the same age as the kids that were killed. And just as with every other thing here in the UK nobody at the top ever went to jail for it. Or even lost their pensions. Same as Hillsborough and Etc., Etc., Etc.

[Ricko]

Money, that was collected by the public, was withheld from the families until the FWA became involved.

[mel b3]

It happened before I was born , but it still brings a tear to my mothers eye whenever it gets mentioned.

Truly heartbreaking. 

May they all rest in peace. 

[steve_b_wales]

I was 9 years old when it happened, and to be honest, I don't remember much about it. My mother still has the Daily Mirror that showed the terrible scene, on it's front page. Back in 1984, I was working in Aberfan and while speaking to a resident, she asked me if I had any children. I replied, yes, a 4 month old daughter. She then said that her only daughter died at the school that day. I didn't know what to say, apart from how sorry I was. Years later, I went up to the cemetery to see where the children were laid to rest. It certainly brought a tear to me eye. Aberfan is not far from where I live.

[simonm]

3 hours ago, JTaylor91 said:

I’m ashamed to admit that until watching that episode I had never heard of it. You would think it would be covered in school.

I do remember learning about it in school. Must have been mid to late 80s I think. 

[marsh man]

At the time I was 19 and can remember it well , very sad and was heart warming how the community and parts of the country pulled together and done what they could .

Nowhere on the same scale as far as loss of life go  , but in January 1953 we were flooded out along the East coast , we had five foot of water in our little terrace house , I was only just over 6 then and with my dad abroad in the navy, my mum was expecting her sixth with five of us at home and we all had to climb down the ladder from our front bedroom , I didn't know at the time how good the people from this country helped us out , not only with cash , clothes , food ect , I was even told that the kind people in London collected and the money was spent on coal for our open fires .  

[JTaylor91]

12 minutes ago, simonm said:

I do remember learning about it in school. Must have been mid to late 80s I think. 

I was born in 91 and it was never mentioned.

[greylag]

I remember my father coming off shift and all the men from his shift went up to help.Never said much about it really but you could tell it affected all the people there.Rest in peace .

[Vince Green]

19 hours ago, Ricko said:

Money, that was collected by the public, was withheld from the families until the FWA became involved.

Most of the money collected is still in a bank account somewhere allegedly according to local folklore.

The fund was set up as a Relief Fund. In other words a hardship fund but its hard to define hardship resulting from the loss of a child. Grief, pain, anger, depression yes but actual financial hardship, thats tricky. Most of the families were too proud to ask in the years that followed. They had to make an application to the trustees and a lot were turned down.

I think the families got a token amount at the time but that was seen as blood money 

I have been there, I had a house not far away for a while, I wish I hadn't really,  there is definitely still something hanging over the place.

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Vince Green

[Bobba]

My mother was born in Cwmfelinfach in 1914. Not far from Aberfan. Aged 14 yrs she entered service in Bristol where she remained for the rest of her life. But in her head she never left Wales. And so, every summer holiday by train and bus she returned with me in tow. I would spend days wandering carefree up "The Dingle" and watch the coal working of Nine Mile Point where my grandfather had been a Hewer of coal. We would catch buses to  the surrounding villages to visit her friends. I developed a great affinity for the area, which I hold today. 

Fast forward to 1967, I was playing in a Bristol group, the Severn Bridge was opened in 1966 and Wales opened up a lot of new venues. We did a gig in Garndiffaith (not too far from Aberfan) and the Sunday morning before returning to Bristol the lads said  something like "You know this area, can you navigate to Aberfan for a look, it seems a lot of the road signs are missing?" I didn't hesitate for a moment. "No" was the reply. I considered it plain wrong to go and gawp at a communities suffering. To this day I'm glad I said No.