Aberfan Disaster
The disaster which shook Wales
On the 21st day of October in 1966, the day started as usual for the children in the Pantglas Junior School. The weather, as per usual, was rainy and the kids were scheduled for a half day just before they split for half term. The school day had just begun when the disaster happened. The children having just got back from assembly, heard a sound that sounded like a jet plane, and before anyone had time to prepare themselves the school was hit with an avalanche of coal slurry from the nearby coal mine.
People reacted almost immediately, local services such as firefighters, policemen, coal miners, and the locals themselves started using tools with some even using their bare hands to move the slurry aside to try and find the victims buried underneath. Ultimately 10 children were retrieved from under the debris alive and a further 26 sustained injuries. The last person alive to be pulled out was a young boy named Jeff Edwards, around 11 o’clock. The landslide hit not long after 9.
As a result of the collapse 144 people died, 116 of them children, most being aged between 7 and 10 years old. The rescue process was a combined effort from the residents of Aberfan including miners and parents. Yvonne Price, a police officer described how “some had no skin on their hands” from digging through the wreckage. After succesfully clearing the area out, the process of identifying the bodies then began. The disaster resulted in psychological and emotional damage to the survivors and the bereaved, as well as to the people of Aberfan as a whole. Many children experienced survivors’ guilt which has affected them to this day, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. These impacts were not well understood or handled at the time.
The events at Aberfan permanently changed the law surrounding spoil tips in the United Kingdom. At the time of the disaster there was no health and safety legislation surrounding spoil tips and subsequently nothing to prevent a similar occurrence happening again. The Aberfan Disaster Tribunal concluded in 1967 and advised that The Mines and Quarries act should be rewritten with legislation regarding spoil tips. The Subsequent Mines and Quarries Act of 1969 and the Mines and quarries regulations of 1971 specified how tips would be constructed. Additionally, the disaster was found to be the fault of the national coal board as they had ignored complaints and concerns expressed prior to the event.
Aberfan and the Coal spoil tips before the disaster and how they look today
