Forty-Eight Years Ago Today...

Aberfan is a small village in Glamorgan, four miles south of Merthyr Tydfil.  In the shadow of Mynydd Merthyr, a ridge of high ground between two valleys, it is a typical Welsh town, with narrow streets lined by small, unremarkable terraced houses.  From the early part of the 20th Century, the aforementioned Mynydd Merthyr was used to store debris from the local coal mines,  In 1966, tragic series of events led to the sleepy little village becoming known worldwide...

Aberfan, Glamorgan by Nick is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The autumn of 1966 was a rainy time in South Wales, and the middle of October saw several days of steady precipitation.  The sandstone foundation of Mynydd Merthyr became saturated, and on the morning of Friday, 21st October, 1966 a subsidence occurred under colliery waste tip No. 7.  This caused a landslide of around 150,000 cubic metres of debris.  Although the sun was shining on the ridge, the village was blanketed in fog, and while the landslide was heard, nobody in the village could see exactly what was happening.

Much of the debris came to rest on the lower slopes of the mountain, but some 40,000 cubic metres continued toward the village, and wiped out a farm, and twenty houses along Moy Road.  That was bad enough, but it didn't stop there...

While this was happening, the children of Pantglas Junior School were returning to their classrooms after assembly in the school hall, where they had been singing All Things Bright and Beautiful.  At 9.15 am, a 12' deep wall of slurry slammed into the school, inundating the classrooms.  Then silence.

The rescue effort and clean-up took weeks.  A total of 144 persons lost their lives, including 116 children between the ages of 7 and 10 (almost half of the total at the school), and five teachers.  The mass funeral at Aberfan's Bryntaf Cemetery on 27th October was attended by over 2,000 people.

Memorial to those who perished in the Aberfan disaster on October 21, 1966

Aberfan, Glamorgan by Nick is licensed under CC BY 2.0

While the number of deaths doesn't compare to many other mining disasters, the fact that almost an entire generation of local children was lost makes the Aberfan disaster so much more tragic.  Friday, 21st October, 1966 will never be forgotten in Aberfan, in Wales, or the whole of Great Britain.