The Aberfan Disaster

On the 21st October 1966, in a small industrial town called Aberfan in South Wales - a catastrophic disaster hit.

For 50 years leading up to the event mining debris from the Merthyr Vale Coillery built up, millions of cubic metres of excavated debris was tipped into a pile directly above Aberfan. The loose debris was tipped onto very porous sandstone which contained numerous underground springs, causing immense downward pressure.

And, after several days of heavy rain - disaster struck. On Friday 21st Oct 1966 at 9.00am a subsidence of about 3–6 metres occurred on the upper flank of waste tip No. 7, and by 9.15am more than 150,000 cubic metres of water-saturated debris broke away and flowed downhill at high speed. As the mass picked up speed the front soon became liquefied and caused viscous surges downhill. 120,000 cubic metres of debris was deposited on the lower slopes of the mountain but a 12m high slurry formed in the village with a mass of over 40,000 cubic metres.

20 houses were destroyed as well as an entire farm but the worst damage of all was the loss of life caused. Pantglas Primary School suffered an inconceivable loss of life - killing 116 children. Those children had just left their assembly on the south side of the school to return to their classrooms on the north side of the school, and yes, it was the north side that was hit. Rubble 33ft deep filled classrooms and the playground. There were also 28 adult fatalities. The disaster struck out a whole generation of children and so the disaster is still poignant in the memory of those still alive in the village today.

By the next day, 2,000 emergency services workers and volunteers were working on the scene (some for more than 24 hours continuously). Rescue work had to be temporarily halted during the day when water began pouring down the slope again, and because of the vast quantity and consistency of the spoil, it was nearly a week before all the bodies were recovered. Chapels acted as mortuary's and 2 doctors were given the role of carrying out the post postmortems - most fatalities were found to be caused by asphyxiation although some were caused by multiple crash injuries or crushed skulls.

There was an investigation carried out later on the 26th October 1966 and the inquiry was published later on the 3rd of August 1967 which found the National Coal Board (NCB) to be at total fault for the tragedy, most notably, Lord Robbens - chair of the NCB at the time.

The only positive to come out of such a disaster was the change in legislation - the law now required the industry to be much stricter on regulations on tipping and general mining activities. There is little doubt that had this disaster not occurred at that time and at that place, it would have happened elsewhere just at a later date. Yet, this tragic land slide was caused by human error and is still very agonising in the memories of many.