50 years ago today - 21st October 1966 - what is probably the worst disaster in Welsh history occured in the small mining village of Aberfan at 9.15am when, after days of heavy rain, more than 40,000 cubic metres of slurry from an unstable spoil heap cascaded down the mountainside and buried the local school buildings.
116 children and 28 adults were killed in the disaster and hundreds of miners were brought in from all over the South Wales valleys region to assist in the recovery operation. Local funeral services were totally overwhelmed and coffins had to be brought in from as far afield as England and Northern Ireland.
As with many tragedies, the timing was a significant factor in the high death toll. Had it occurred a few minutes earlier, the classrooms would have been empty, and a few hours later the children would be back at home.
For many years (in some cases to this day), tensions arose between the familes of those who died and those who survived, placing great strain on the community as a whole.
Ultimately, the blame for the disaster was placed at the feet of the National Coal Board, who were fully aware of the unstable nature of the spoil heap and the ground underneath. Many local residents had been raising concerns about the risk of a catastrophic landslide for years but were ignored and in some cases, legally silenced by the powerful NCB (the primary employer in South Wales at the time, with the threat of dismissal being ever present for those who were prepared to speak out of turn)
The disaster brought messages of support and sympathy from all around the world - something that was relatively unusual in itself in those pre-internet days and to this day, the very mention of Aberfan casts a long and dark shadow over the whole of Wales, particularly the former coal mining valleys in the south.
The subsequent inquiry's conclusions were challenged by the NCB through a variety of means, and it would not be until 1997 that the full details of the legal and political manouvering were finally made public, having been classified under the so-called "Thirty Year Rule" at the time.
The remaining spoil heaps that surrounded the village were eventually removed (despite huge opposition from the government at the time - and with the government funding the removal works by raiding £150,000 (approximately $200,000) from the disaster relief fund - something that is actually illegal under charity law. (the Labour government under Tony Blair finally refunded this money in 2007)
Today, Aberfan stands as a stark reminder of what happens when corporate profits are given a higher priority than public safety, and the shabby politics surrounding the subsequent inquiry lays bare the kind of mindset of the people in charge of these things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster
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