1966 Aberfan disaster

Overview
The Aberfan disaster was a catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip in the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, on 21 October 1966, which killed 116 children and 28 adults. It was caused by a build-up of water in the accumulated rock and shale, which suddenly started to slide downhill in the form of slurry. Over 1.4 million cubic feet (40,000 cu metres) of debris covered the village in minutes. The classrooms at Pantglas Junior School were immediately inundated; young children and teachers died from impact or suffocation. Many noted the poignancy of the situation: if the disaster had struck a few minutes earlier, the children would not have been in their classrooms, and if it had struck a few hours later, the school would have broken up for half-term.

Great rescue efforts were made, but the large numbers who crowded into the village tended to hamper the work of the trained rescue teams, and delayed the arrival of mine rescue workers from the Merthyr Vale Colliery. Only a few lives could be saved in any case.

The official inquiry blamed the National Coal Board for extreme negligence, and its Chairman, Lord Robens, for making misleading statements. Parliament soon passed new legislation about public safety in relation to mines and quarries.

The location and near by town
Aberfan (Welsh pronunciation: [ˌabɛrˈvan]) is a former coal mining village in South Wales, 4 miles (6 km) south mining town of Merthyr Tydfil Town. The Taff Trail (locally known as the "Canal Bank" or just "the bank") runs through Aberfan from Troed-y-rhiw, to Treharris. The River Taff also flows through Aberfan.

On 21 October 1966, it became known for the Aberfan disaster, when a colliery spoil heap collapsed into homes and a school, killing 116 children and 28 adults.

Like most South Welsh towns and villages, it was between small, but steep valley banks, agrivated by the unstable and steep spoil (slag) heaps) created by over 150 years of coal and stone mininig in the region.

Welsh Coal mining areas
The South Wales Coalfield extends from parts of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire in the west, through Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend County Borough, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly County Borough and Blaenau Gwent to Torfaen in the east. The rocks comprising this area were laid down during the Upper Carboniferous era. At that time warm seas invaded much of southern and northeastern Wales, coral reefs flourished and were laid down as limestone deposits. In South Wales particularly, extensive swamps developed where tree-size clubmosses and ferns grew. The decay of this vegetation as it died formed peat which became buried over the ensuing millennia by other sediments. Over long periods of time, the peat was consolidated and converted by the pressure of overlying rock and sand layers into seams of coal. Although thinner than the original peat layers, some of the coal deposits in South Wales are of great thickness and higher quality.

The North Wales Coalfield is divided into two parts, the Flintshire Coalfield to the north and the nearly contiguous Denbighshire Coalfield to the south. The Flintshire Coalfield extends from the Point of Ayr in the north, through Connah's Quay to Caergwrle in the south. It also extends under the Dee Estuary to the Neston area of the Wirral Peninsula. The Denbighshire Coalfield extends from near Caergwrle in the north, to Wrexham, Ruabon, Rhosllannerchrugog and Chirk in the south, a small part extending into Shropshire in the Oswestry area.

Aberfan and related valleys
For many years, millions of cubic metres of excavated mining debris from the colliery were deposited on the side of Mynydd Merthyr, directly above the village of Aberfan on the opposite side of the valley. Huge piles, or "tips", of loose rock and mining spoil had been built up over a layer of highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs, and several tips had been built up directly over these springs. Although local authorities had raised specific concerns in 1963 about spoil being tipped on the mountain above the village primary school, these were largely ignored by the National Coal Board's area management. 7 hillside slag tips towered over the village menacingly, the oldest being 70 years old and the youngest (including No. 7) being 40 years old. Tip No. 7 was built directly on a marshy spring and a related small lake or pond children played in during the 1910s and 1920s. Tips No. 2 and No. 4 were also built on springs and leaked water in various steams and ad-hock drains.

Early on the morning of Friday, 21 October 1966, after several days of heavy rain, a subsidence of about 3–6 metres occurred on the upper flank of colliery waste tip No. 7. At 9:15 a.m. more than 150,000 cubic metres of water-saturated debris broke away and flowed downhill at high speed. A mass of over 40,000 cubic metres of debris smashed into the village in a slurry 12 metres (39 ft) deep.

The slide destroyed a farm and twenty terraced houses along Moy Road, and slammed into the northern side of the Pantglas Junior School and part of the separate senior school, demolishing most of the structures and filling the classrooms with thick mud and rubble up to 10 metres (33 ft) deep. The mud and water from the slide flooded many other houses in the vicinity, forcing many villagers to evacuate their homes.

Tip safety
For 50 years up to 1966, millions of tonnes (cubic metres) of excavated mining debris from the (by then) National Coal Board s Merthyr Vale Colliery were deposited on the side of Mynydd Merthyr, directly above the village of Aberfan. Huge piles, or "tips", of loose rock and mining spoil had been built up over a layer of highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs, and several tips had been built up directly over these springs. Local's worries about the tip were dismissed. Although Merthyr Tydfil Council raised specific concerns, most recently in letters to the NCB 1963, about spoil being tipped on the mountain above the village primary school, these were largely ignored by NCB area management. Despite assurances that tipping behind the school would cease, it carried on until the day of the disaster and nothing was done about the existing waste.

In 1964 local Councillor Gwyneth Williams warned that if the tip were to move suddenly it could threaten the whole school. In 1965 a petition against the tip from mothers at Pantglas school was presented by headmistress Ann Jennings to Merthyr County Borough Council. Ms Jennings and many of the petitioners' children subsequently died in the disaster. Aberfan resident Dai Tudor said "I’ve warned and campaigned for years about that tip. Nobody in authority took any notice. This is not just the greatest tragedy in Wales. It is the biggest scandal." Photographs, diagrams and an analysis of the 1966 flowslide, as well as locations of earlier slides at Aberfan are given in a paper by Prof. Alan Bishop.

Earlier landslips on the slagheaps

 * 1939- Kilbuneth (lead to the Powell [safety] Memo on slag heaps).
 * 1947- Te-Maway (almost consumed the village, blocked off the River Taff and almost went in over the pit head (the top of the mine shaft and the winding gears).).
 * 1957- Tip No. 2 and No.4 (minor slag tip slips that were filled back in).
 * 1963- Tip No. 7. (covered up a stream, spring and pond in it's rebuilding).

The Powell Memo
The local mining corporations and pit bosses drafted the Powell [safety] Memo on slag heaps in 1939 after Kilbuneth. The National Coal Board (the NCB) binned the Powell Memmo in 1947.

The memo recommended slag heaps were not to be built on water coarse or springs, that they were not to exceed 20ft in high and were never to be built on a steep gradient (they had assumed it to be ~1:4 gradient) valley slope or it's self pilled up at a steep gradient (they had assumed it to be ~1:2 gradient).

Collapse


Early on the morning of Friday, 21 October 1966, after several days of heavy rain, a subsidence of approximately 10 - 20 feet (3–6 mtrs) occurred on the upper flank of colliery spoil heap No. 7. At 9.15 am more than 150,000 cubic metres (5,300,000 cu ft) of water-saturated debris broke away and flowed downhill at high speed. It was sunny on the mountain but foggy in the village, with visibility only about fifty metres (160 ft). The tipping gang working on the mountain saw the landslide start but were unable to raise the alarm because their telephone cable had been stolen. The official inquiry later established that the slip happened so fast that a telephone warning would not have saved any lives.

The front part of the mass became iquefied due to the soil liquifation phinomona and moved down the slope at high speed as a series of viscous surges depositing 4,200,000 cubic feet (120,000 cu metres) of debris on the lower slopes of the mountain. A mass of more than 1,400,000 cubic feet (40,000 cu metres) of debris smashed into the village in a slurry 40 feet (13m) deep engulfing it in 150,000 tonnes of coal, shale and water. The slide destroyed a farm and twenty terraced houses along Moy Road and slammed into the northern side of the Pantglas Junior School and part of the separate senior school, demolishing most of the structures and filling the classrooms with thick mud, sludge and rubble up to 30 foot (10 metres) depth. Mud and water from the slide flooded many other houses in the vicinity, forcing many villagers to evacuate their homes. The pupils of Pantglas Junior School had arrived only minutes earlier for the last day before the half-term holiday. The teachers had just begun to record the children's attendance in the registers when a great noise was heard outside. They were in their classrooms when the landslide hit; the classrooms were on the side of the building nearest the landslide. Nobody in the village was able to see it, but everyone could hear the roar of the approaching landslide. Some at the school thought it was a jet about to crash and one teacher ordered his class to hide under their desks.


 * Gaynor Minett, then an eight-year-old at the school, later recalled:

"It was a tremendous rumbling sound and all the school went dead. You could hear a pin drop. Everyone just froze in their seats. I just managed to get up and I reached the end of my desk when the sound got louder and nearer, until I could see the black out of the window. I can't remember any more but I woke up to find that a horrible nightmare had just begun in front of my eyes."
 * Gaynor Madgewick, Aberfan: Struggling out of the darkness (Blaengarw: Valley & Vale, 1996), p.23

After the landslide there was total silence. George Williams, who was trapped in the wreckage, remembered:

"In that silence you couldn't hear a bird or a child."

Rescue efforts
After the main landslide stopped, frantic parents rushed to the scene and began digging through the rubble, some clawing at the debris with their bare hands, trying to uncover buried children. Police from Merthyr Tydfil arrived soon after and took charge of the search-and-rescue operations; as news spread, hundreds of people drove to Aberfan to try to help, but their efforts were largely in vain. A large amount of water and mud was still flowing down the slope, and the growing crowd of untrained volunteers further hampered the work of the trained rescue teams who were arriving. Hundreds of miners from local collieries rushed to Aberfan, especially from the nearby Merthyr Vale Colliery, as well as miners from Deep Navigation Colliery and Taff Merthyr Colliery in the neighbouring Taff Bargoed Valley, and also from pits across the South Wales coalfield, many in open lorries with their shovels in their hands, but by the time those miners reached the site, there was little they could do. A few children were pulled out alive in the first hour, but no survivors were found after 11 am.

By the next day, 2,000 emergency services workers and volunteers were on the scene, some of whom had worked continuously for more than 24 hours. 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.

Bethania Chapel, 250 metres (273 yd) from the disaster site, was used as the temporary mortuary and missing persons bureau from 21 October until 4 November 1966 and its vestry was used to house Red Cross volunteers and St John Ambulance stretcher-bearers. The smaller Aberfan Calvinistic Chapel was used as a second mortuary from 22–29 October and became the final resting-place for the victims before their funerals.

Two doctors were given the job of making death certificates and examining the bodies; the causes of death were typically found to be asphyxia, fractured skull or multiple crush injuries. A team of 400 embalmers arrived in Aberfan on Sunday and under police supervision they cleaned and prepared over 100 bodies and placed them in coffins obtained from South Wales, the Midlands, Bristol and Northern Ireland. The bodies were released to the families from the morning of Monday 24 October. Due to the cramped conditions in the chapel/mortuary, parents could only be admitted one at a time to identify the bodies of their children. One mother later recalled being shown the bodies of almost every dead girl recovered from the school before identifying her own daughter.

The final death toll was 144. In addition to five of their teachers, 116 of the dead were children between the ages of 7 and 10 – almost half of the children at the Pantglas Junior School. Most of the victims were interred at Bryntaf Cemetery in Aberfan in a joint funeral held on 27 October 1966, attended by more than 2,000 people.

Actions of Lord Robens
The chairman of the National Coal Board (NCB) at the time of the disaster was Alfred Lord Robens. Robens had been a senior union official in the 1930s and then served as a Labour MP, briefly becoming Minister of Power in the final days of the Attlee Labour government. His actions immediately after the Aberfan disaster and in the years that followed have been the subject of considerable criticism.

When word of the Aberfan disaster reached him, Robens did not immediately go to the scene; he instead went ahead with his investiture as Chancellor of the University of Surrey, and did not arrive at the village until the evening of the following day (Saturday). NCB officers covered up for Robens when contacted by the Secretary of State for Wales, Cledwyn Hughes, falsely claiming that Robens was personally directing relief work when he was not present.

When he reached Aberfan, Robens told a TV reporter that nothing could have been done to prevent the slide, attributing it to 'natural unknown springs' beneath the tip, a statement which the locals challenged – the NCB had in fact been tipping on top of known springs that were clearly marked on maps of the neighbourhood, and where villagers had played as children.

His evidence to the Tribunal of Inquiry was unsatisfactory; so much so that counsel for the NCB in their closing speech to the Tribunal asked for Robens' evidence to be ignored. He took a very narrow view of the NCB's responsibilities over the remaining Aberfan tips. His opposition to doing anything more than was needed to make the tips safe (even after the Prime Minister had promised villagers the tips would have to go) was overcome only by an additional grant from the government and a (bitterly opposed and subsequently much resented) contribution from the disaster fund of £150,000 (nearly 10% of the money raised).

Death toll
In total, 116 children and 28 adults were killed.

Who took the blame
No one was formally blamed or incriminated, but the NCB was found guilty of recklessness and neglect on a corporate level. They refused to pay compensation until 1972.

Fiscal issues
The NCB initially offered the families of the dead £50 (1,038.48 by 2000 monitory values); the sum was later increased to £500 (10,384.80 by 2000 monitory values). The NCB called it "a generous offer".

New safety laws
The Powell Memo briefly became law, but soon became obsolete. The law on not dumping on springs or bodies of water became a major law until 1972, when other stricter laws occurred steadily until the early 1980s.

Aberfan Memorial
After the disaster the Mayor of Merthyr immediately launched a Disaster Fund to aid the village and the bereaved. The fund’s final sum totaled approximately £1,750,000. In 1997 this represented approximately £17.5 million in donations. The concerns of the village and donors grew about how the money in the fund would be used, with the community split between compensating the bereaved, whilst others felt it should benefit the wider community. The funds paid for the memorial garden and cemetery along with other facilities to aid the regeneration of Aberfan both physically and emotionally.

Aberfan Memorial Garden and Cemetery
The Memorial Garden and cemetery is where many of the victims are buried. The original Portland and Nabresina Stone memorials erected shortly after the disaster began to deteriorate and in 2007 the Aberfan Memorial Charity refurbished the Memorial Garden area including all of the archways and memorials. The weathered masonry was replaced with polished pearl white granite, all inscriptions were re-engraved and additional archways were erected.

Aberfan Park Memorial
The Coventry Playground was built in 1972 on the site of the old Merthyr Vale School, with the monies collected by the people of Coventry. The playground was officially opened by the mayor of Coventry.

A playground was opened on the site of Pantglas Primary school, which was destroyed during the disaster, the park was partly opened by the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh on her visit to Aberfan in 1974.

The Aberfan Memorial Charity was founded in 1989 and is responsible for the maintenance and repair of the cemetery and memorial garden.

Literature

 * 1) "Aberfan: Under the Arc Lights," in The Spectator, 28 October 1966, reprinted in Best Poems of 1966: Borestone Mountain Poetry Awards: A Compilation of Original Poetry Published in Magazines of the English-Speaking World in 1966, Volume XIX, Pacific Book Publishers, Palo Alto California, 1967.
 * 2) Riddle of the Pyramids by Kurt Mendelssohn, 1974, finds a clue to the construction of the Egypian pyramids in the physics of the Aberfan disaster.
 * 3) The Aberfan disaster appears in the plot of David Lodge's novel How Far Can You Go.

Music

 * 1) "The Aberfan Coal Tip Tragedy", a song by Thom Parrott, included on the Smithsonian Folkways CD set Best of Broadside.
 * 2) "Aberfan", a song by David Ackles, included on his album Five & Dime.
 * 3) "Grey October", a song by Peggy Seeger.
 * 4) "Sing To My Soul", a song by Welsh musician Martyn Joseph refers to his memories of October 1966.
 * 5) "Aberfan", a song by Ohio-based Celtic band Dulahan on their 2005 album Not against my Own.
 * 6) "Palaces of Gold", a song by Leon Rosselson, originally recorded for his 1968 album A Laugh, a Song, and a Hand-Grenade and used as the title track for his 1975 album. The song was covered in 1976 by Martin Carthy on his album Crown of Horn.
 * 7) "A Mountain Moved", a song by John Sloman. from his album "13 Storeys" 2006.
 * 8) "The Price of Coal", a song by Alex Glasgow, which has been sung by artists including Paul Child and David Alexander, references the disaster.
 * 9) According to the liner notes for their box-set Tales from the Brothers Gibb (1990), the disaster was the inspiration behind the Bee Gees' song "New York Mining Disaster 1941".
 * 10) "Not All The Flowers Grow", a song by Dave Cousins and performed by the Strawbs on their 2001 album Baroque & Roll.
 * 11) Cantata Memoria: For the children, a choral work by Karl Jenkins, with libretto by Mererid Hopwood, was written for a memorial concert for the 50th anniversary of the disaster. The work, commissioned by S4C, was performed at the Wales Millennium Centre on Saturday 8 October 2016, before being broadcast on S4C on 9 October and released as an album by Deutsche Grammophon.

Documentary

 * 1) Title unknown, but there was a Sky News documentry on it in 2011.
 * 2) Aberfan: The Fight for Justice, a BBC One documentary on 18 October 2016, included dramatic reconstruction of some of the tribunal proceedings and eye-witness accounts.

Also see

 * 1) Neftegorsk (Sakhalin Oblast) May 28, 1995, Earthquake
 * 2) Disasters
 * 3) Mineral mining, smelting and shipping videos
 * 4) Ebbw Vale Steelworks
 * 5) Energy and resources
 * 6) Energy industry
 * 7) Mining
 * 8) Cambrian Colliery
 * 9) Lofthouse Colliery disaster
 * 10) Knockshinnoch Disaster
 * 11) Lord Louis Mountbatten's very British coup

Outside sources

 * 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan
 * 2) https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Aberfan_disaster
 * 3) http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/politics/aberfan/chap1.htm
 * 4) https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mining_in_Wales
 * 5) http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/gradient.html
 * 6) http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/october-21-1966-coal-tip-buries-children-in-aberfan-11364011683753
 * 7) https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEV0iP0QdYFtcAB6VXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyaHZjYzhtBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjE4NzlfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=1966+Aberfan+Disaster&fr=yset_chr_cnewtab
 * 8) https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1966/oct/22/fromthearchive
 * 9) http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2011/10/21/remembering-the-aberfan-disaster-45-years-ago-today/
 * 10) https://worldhistoryproject.org/1966/10/21/aberfan-disaster
 * 11) https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=aberfan+disaster&tag=mh0a9-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=3170924118&hvqmt=p&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_1ksgh1aukl_p
 * 12) http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/october/21/newsid_3194000/3194860.stm
 * 13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster
 * 14) http://www.exchangerates.uk.com/historical-data/
 * 15) http://coinmill.com/GBP_calculator.html
 * 16) http://fxtop.com/en/historical-exchange-rates.php?A=1&C1=GBP&C2=GBP&MA=1&DD1=&MM1=&YYYY1=&B=1&P=&I=1&DD2=21&MM2=10&YYYY2=1960&btnOK=Go%21
 * 17) http://fxtop.com/en/historical-exchange-rates.php
 * 18) http://www.concertina.com/calculator/
 * 19) https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-value-of-a-dollar-today-3306105
 * 20) https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-value-of-a-dollar-today-3306105
 * 21) https://www.avforums.com/threads/what-is-the-value-of-a-pound-in-1966-compared-to-2010.1206218/
 * 22) http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/etc/GBPpages.pdf
 * 23) http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/october-21-1966-coal-tip-buries-children-in-aberfan-11364011683753
 * 24) https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEV0iP0QdYFtcAB6VXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyaHZjYzhtBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjE4NzlfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=1966+Aberfan+Disaster&fr=yset_chr_cnewtab
 * 25) https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1966/oct/22/fromthearchive
 * 26) http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2011/10/21/remembering-the-aberfan-disaster-45-years-ago-today/
 * 27) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfordshirechurches/29031391053
 * 28) http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3380256
 * 29) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_east/4243923.stm
 * 30) https://worldhistoryproject.org/1966/10/21/aberfan-disaster
 * 31) https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=aberfan+disaster&tag=mh0a9-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=3170924118&hvqmt=p&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_1ksgh1aukl_p
 * 32) http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/october/21/newsid_3194000/3194860.stm
 * 33) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster