The Aberfan Disaster
By Lewis Goode, 3rd Year History
Aberfan Disaster, 21st October 1966
On this day 56 years ago, 110,000 m3 of spoil from the local colliery collapsed and went hurtling towards the village of Aberfan, Wales. The disaster would claim the lives of 116 children and 28 adults as the local primary school was engulfed by the landslide.
The 1966 disaster quickly gained national attention and grief. The desperate and provocative imagery that emerged from the disaster adorned newspapers, men and women, many of them the parents of the school children, digging through the black rubble to find any survivors and the giant tear of the spoil penetrating the village.
Caused by unsafe, and known, dumping of spoil (unwanted rocks, shale, coal, and ash) over years of operation combined with heavy rainfall had turned the seventh tip at the Merthyr Vale Colliery into a century-long ticking time bomb.
The MP for Merthyr Tydfil, Mr S. O. Davis, stated in the tribunal after the disaster that he feared that there might be a landslide which may indeed ‘reach the village.’ In response to this, the miners he expressed his fears to, said that he should not make a fuss about it as if he did ‘they will close down the blessed colliery.’[1]
Residents of Aberfan had also made complaints and expressed their concerns over the size of the tip to the National Coal Board (NCB) which ran the nationalised coal mining industry in the UK. The report that was to be conducted in the aftermath of the disaster found the NCB, while not to blame for the disaster, was guilty of negligence and that ‘clear instructions were not given… so that both officials and workmen were left without proper guidance.’[2] There have been many who lay the blame further at the hands of the NCB. One of the judges on the case, Desmond Ackner QC, accused the NCB of ‘eight years of folly and neglect.’[3] His representation of the families at Aberfan is memorialised on a plaque on a bench at the Disaster Memorial Garden.[4]
The Queen greeting mourners in Aberfan, 1966
The event had largely been forgotten about outside of South Wales, until recently it came back to national attention after an episode of Netflix’s ‘The Crown.’ Her reaction to the disaster was said to be ‘one of her biggest regrets’ as she refused to initially come to the village.[5] While the then PM, Harold Wilson, and Prince Philip had visited the site the following day, the Queen waited eight days before arriving. When she was there, she was heartbroken at the sight of the landslide and grew close to the village, visiting three more times.
The Aberfan Disaster led to reform in the transparency of mining operations in the UK with the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969. Now the legacy of Aberfan will be further memorialised in the St Fagan’s National Museum of Wales in Cardiff with a collection of objects recovered from the wreckage.
[1] Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, Report of the Tribunal appointed to inquire into the Disaster at Aberfan on October 21st, (London:1966), pg 32
[2] Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, Report of the Tribunal appointed to inquire into the Disaster at Aberfan on October 21st, (London:1966), pg 81
[3] Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, Report of the Tribunal appointed to inquire into the Disaster at Aberfan on October 21st, (London:1966), pg 25
[4] https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/documentaries/the-aberfan-disaster-john-humphrys-huw-edwards-and-a-survivor-recall-the-1966-tragedy/
[5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-42101460