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The ICCM Journal | Spring 2022 | V90 No. 1
pulpit: the Aberfan disaster, 1966 The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The Abefan tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. A period of heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it suddenly to slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses. The spoil tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees. There were seven spoil tips on the hills above Aberfan; Tip 7—the one that slipped onto the village—was begun in 1958 and, at the time of the disaster, was 111 feet (34 m) high. In contravention of the NCB's official procedures, the tip was partly based on ground from which water springs emerged. After three weeks of heavy rain the tip was saturated and approximately 140,000 cubic yards (110,000 m3) of spoil slipped down the side of the hill and onto the Pantglas area of the village. The main building hit was the local junior school, where lessons had just begun. Five teachers and 109 children were killed in the school. An official inquiry was chaired by Lord Justice Edmund Davies. The report placed the blame squarely on the NCB. The organisation's chairman, Lord Robens, was criticised for making misleading statements and for not providing clarity as to the NCB's knowledge of the presence of water springs on the hillside. Neither the NCB nor any of its employees were prosecuted and the organisation was not fined. The Aberfan Disaster Memorial Fund (ADMF) was established on the day of the disaster. It received nearly 88,000 contributions, totalling £1.75 million. The remaining tips were removed only after a lengthy fight by Aberfan residents, against resistance from the NCB and the government on the grounds of cost. Clearing was paid for by a government grant and a forced contribution of £150,000 taken from the memorial fund. In 1997 the British government paid back the £150,000 to the ADMF, and in 2007 the Welsh Government donated £1.5 million to the fund and £500,000 to the Aberfan Education Charity as recompense for the money wrongly taken. Many of the village’s residents suffered medical problems, and half the survivors have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at some time in their lives. (From Wikipedia). My wife Marion and I went to The Brecon Beacons on 21st October, 2021 to spend a few days with our son Toby and his wife Mell and their daughter, Ash. Mell announced that the day was the 55th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster and suggested we drove the short distance to the former school site to pay our respects and see what was happening to it now. Memories of the chaos came back to me. I had been just 20 years old in October, 1966, and I remembered painful images of the site. The shock of what happened returned to my mind and I was unable to prevent my tears for much of the visit. The school buildings were eventually demolished and the site was made into a memorial garden (below) and is a peaceful, calm and respectful place for visitors, both members of the families affected by the disaster, local villagers and others, like our party, who just wanted to share their grief for a while and ponder the whole disastrous event and everything
