Cofiwn: World remembers Aberfan disaster

Stephen Price

Today, people across the world remember one of the greatest tragedies in Welsh history – the 1966 Aberfan disaster – which left a small mining village robbed of an entire generation.

The children of Pantglas School, Aberfan were preparing for their school holidays with plans for a half day as an extra treat.

Heavy rain beforehand was nothing unusual for the community, but fog meant some pupils had yet to arrive when the final lines of All Things Bright and Beautiful had been sung out.

Moments later, an avalanche of 1.4 million cubic feet of coal waste made its way down the mountain, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses.

The 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.

“Horrible nightmare”

Gaynor Minett, one of the surviving school children, who lost her brother and sister that morning, recalled the horror four years later.

“Mr Davis, our teacher, got the board out and wrote our maths class work and we were all working, and then it began,” she said.

“It was a tremendous rumbling sound and all the school went dead.

“You could hear a pin drop. Everyone just froze in their seats. I just managed to get up and I reached the end of my desk when the sound got louder and nearer, until I could see the black out of the window.

“I can’t remember any more but I woke up to find that a horrible nightmare had just begun in front of my eyes.”

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.

The site’s clearance was paid for by a government grant and a forced contribution of £150,000 taken from the memorial fund.

Haunting

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 developed medical problems as a result of the disaster, and half the survivors have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at some time in their lives.

The 10:30 am BBC news summary led with the story of the disaster. The result was that thousands of volunteers travelled to Aberfan to help, although their efforts often hampered the work of the experienced miners or trained rescue teams.

In one classroom 14 bodies were found and outside mothers struggled deep in mud, clamouring to find their children. Many were led away weeping.

The school’s deputy head, 47-year-old David Beynon, had only been at the school for six weeks when his body was found amid the debris.

Many of the rescuers were local miners, with their own children in school that morning. One discussed the discovery of Beynon’s body, saying: “He was clutching five children in his arms as if he had been protecting them.”

Today

Wales remains dotted with 4,000 waste coal tips like the one that devastated Aberfan. In 2020, a tip slid down a hill in nearby Tylorstown after days of heavy rain and storms, with no one being hurt.

The Welsh government has published maps online of the 350 waste coal tips that pose the biggest risk. There have been 2,000 safety inspections of coal tips carried out in recent years, costing the devolved government close to £60 million.

First Minister Eluned Morgan was grilled about the issue last Tuesday in the Senedd, telling Senedd members she had raised it with UK prime minister Keir Starmer.

Legacy

In August 2021 a memorial sculpture by the Welsh artist Nathan Wyburn was installed at the Rhondda Heritage Museum.

In January 2022 there was a call to find a permanent home for the artefacts salvaged from the disaster. These included a clock which had stopped at the exact moment the disaster occurred.

In February of the same year, the cemetery, together with the memorial garden and the area of the tip and its slide path, were listed on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales. The record of the Grade II site describes it as being of “great national importance and meaning”.

The disaster was brought to the screen for one of the most poignant episodes of The Crown’s third season, with viewers and critics alike calling it one of the most moving pieces of television they have ever seen.

The world still mourns the 144 lives lost that day in Aberfan, with commemorations set to take place in the village itself today.

And in the mourning, a nation continues its hope that something similar can never ever happen again.

Linda, who now lives in Australia said: “I went to Pantglas on that day. I was thirteen.

“I will remember always and never forget my friends whom I lost, and how I survived. I still cry.”