Discover

'Aberfan' (X-SAMPA: , approximately ''abervan'') is a small village five miles (8 km) south of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.

Contents

Aberfan disaster

References

See also

External links

Aberfan disaster

On Friday, October 21, 1966, at 09:15, colliery waste tip number 7 (containing unwanted rock from the local mine) slid down Merthyr Mountain. As it collapsed, it destroyed 20 houses and a farm before going on to demolish virtually all of Pantglas Junior School and part of the separate senior school. The pupils had just left the assembly hall, where they had been singing "All Things Bright and Beautiful", when a great noise was heard outside. Had they left for their classrooms a few minutes later, the loss of life would have been significantly reduced, as the classrooms were on the side of the building nearest the landslide.

In total, 144 people were killed, 116 of whom were children, most of them between the ages of seven and 10. Five teachers were also killed in the accident. Only a handful of children were rescued from the rubble.
Lord Robens of Woldingham, chairman of the National Coal Board (NCB), did not rush to the scene; he instead went to accept an appointment as chancellor of the University of Surrey. Subsequently, he misrepresented the cause of the slide to the community and falsely claimed that nothing could have been done to prevent it. Robens never apologised.
At the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Aberfan Disaster, the NCB was found responsible for the disaster, due to "ignorance, ineptitude and a failure of communication". The collapse was found to have been caused by a build-up of water in the pile and, when a small rotational slip occurred, the disturbance caused the saturated, fine material of the tip to liquefy (thixotropy) and flow down the mountain. In 1958, the tip had been sited on a known stream (as shown on earlier Ordnance Survey maps) and had previously suffered several minor slips. Its instability was known, both to colliery management and to tip workers, but very little was done about it. Merthyr Tydfil Borough Council and the National Union of Mineworkers were cleared of any wrongdoing. No NCB employee was sacked, demoted or even disciplined.
The NCB was ordered to pay compensation to the families at the rate of £500 per child.
After lengthy appeals, part of the fund was used to make the remainder of the waste tip safe and the Coal Board avoided the costs of doing the whole job from its own resources. The Labour government paid back the £150,000 in 1997, although taking account of inflation this should have been £1.5M.
Merthyr Vale Colliery was closed in 1989.
In February 2007 the Welsh Assembly announced the donation of £2M to the Aberfan Disaster Memorial Fund, in part as recompense for the money requisitioned by the government in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
'ABERFAN' (By Max Boyce)



A shy and fragile leaf now greens,

In a bright and plastic room

On tender stem it offers forth

To cast its earthen womb

Fed by a valley's tears

That watched it leaf and grow

To tell of ones that sleep the night

In Aberfan below



One day those sleepy flowers

Will leave that sunsealed land

And wink away the night

That no one understands

To tell us why that summer fades

In a single afternoon

And why that day in Aberfan

Did autumn come so soon.

References

★ The Bee Gees song New York Mining Disaster 1941 is based on this event.

★ Archives Network Wales - Glamorgan Record Office - Aberfan Disaster Inquiry, Chief Surveyor's Papers

See also

★ Corporate crime

★ Corporate scandal

External links

★ Aberfan Disaster

★ BBC News - Private service remembers Aberfan - memorial section 21/10/06

★ Old Merthyr Tydfil: Aberfan - Historical Photographs of the Area and the Aberfan Disaster.

★ BBC – On This Day

★ BBC Wales South East - Your Memories

★ Corporatism and Regulatory Failure: Government Response to the Aberfan Disaster

★ Digital Journalist - Aberfan: The Days After - by I.C. Rapoport

★ Rapo.com - Photographs of the Aftermath

★ South Wales Police - The Aberfan Disaster 21st October 1966

★ The Tribunal of Inquiry into the Aberfan Disaster

★ Wales on the Web - Aberfan Disaster Archive

★ Income from Aberfan's £2m will be for memorials and children