Fifty years ago today, disaster stuck a small town in the Welsh valleys. It was one of the first disasters to be widely reported on television and the shocking footage was seen around the world. Aberfan was a mining town, but this disaster did not strike the pit and its miners, but instead the vast majority of the victims were schoolchildren.
Coal-mining is a dangerous business but it is a dirty one too. It produces vast amounts of waste products. At the Merthyr Vale colliery, this waste rock, or spoil, had been piled into tips on the mountainside for decades. By the middle of the sixties, seven of these tips rose above Aberfan. Several of them had been built on porous sandstone, on top of underground springs. Concerns had been raised by the locals, especially given the proximity of the tips to Pantglas Schools, but the National Coal Board or NCB (who ran the pit) and local politicians (who knew the importance of the pit and the jobs it provided) didn’t pay much heed.
October 21st, 1966 was a Friday, the last day of school before the mid-term break.
It had been raining heavily for several days beforehand, and the tips were sodden. At 9:15am, just as the pupils were settling down in their classrooms, part of Tip No. 7 gave way. Thousands of tonnes of debris, mud and stone liquified and rushed down the mountainside. There was no time to warn the village below. The deadly slide destroyed farm cottages, terraced houses and part of the senior school but the epicentre of the horror was the junior school. The northern side of the school were completely engulfed. Classrooms filled up with black sludge as walls collapsed. In seconds, a generation was nearly wiped out.
The villagers instantly rallied with the rescue, trying to dig the children out with bare, bloodied hands. Only a handful of people were rescued from the mud.
In all, 144 people were killed on that damp October morning – 28 adults, 116 children.
The NCB tried to shift blame but the tribunal found them responsible for the tragedy. No one faced persecution. No one lost their jobs over the decision to place the tip in such a perilous place.
At one of the coroner’s inquests, one father loudly objected to the cause of his daughter’s death being recorded as asphyxia and multiple injuries.
“No sir, buried alive by the National Coal Board.” He insisted.
Nearly every family in the village was touched by the tragedy. Surviving children often didn’t play in the streets, because it reminded their neighbours of the children they had lost. Prescription rates of tranquillisers and sleeping tablets rose drastically in the area. Many of the survivors, bereaved relatives and rescuers suffered, and are still suffering from what we now know as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The remaining tips still overshadowed Aberfan, and it took much campaigning to finally force the NCB to remove them. In a disgusting insult to the victims, money was taken from an memorial fund (made up of donations) to help pay for their removal. It took over thirty years for the money to be finally be returned to the fund.
Merthyr Vale colliery closed in 1989, and there is no longer a coal industry in the Welsh valleys. Many of the victims were buried on the hillside, the white arches marking their graves can be seen in the village below. There is now a memorial garden where Pantglas School once stood, with flowerbeds bordering the footprints of the classrooms where so many died.
Further Reading
Aberfan – A Story of Survival, Love & Community in One of Britain’s Worst Disasters Gaynor Madgwick
Gaynor Madgwick (née Minett) was 8 years old and a pupil at Pantglas Junior School in October 1966. She survived the disaster but sustained a badly broken leg. Her older sister Marylyn and younger brother Carl both died. This is an excellent, heartbreaking and very personal book that I would highly recommend.
More Information:
BBC iPlayer – Surviving Aberfan (UK only)
BBC iPlayer – Aberfan: The Fight For Justice (UK only)
ITV Player – The Aberfan Young Wives Club
Gift of The Gob 