Muteswan
Roger Freestone
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Taken from The History Of Wales.
At 9.15 am on Friday, October 21, 1966, a waste tip above the mining village of Aberfan began to slide down the mountainside, firstly destroying a farm cottage and killing all its occupants. It then approached Pantglas Junior School, where the children had only just returned to their classes after singing All Things Bright and Beautiful at their morning assembly. The slide then engulfed the school and about 20 houses in the village, killing 144 people, including 116 school children.
Workers up in the mountain had seen the slide start, but could not raise the alarm because their telephone cable had been stolen and down in the village, everybody heard the noise, but could see nothing, because of thick fog.
News of the tragedy travelled fast and hundreds of people stopped what they were doing and headed to Aberfan to try and help with the rescue. It was futile, as nobody was rescued alive after 11am and it was nearly a week before all the bodies were recovered.
On Mynydd Merthyr, directly above Aberfan, several tips containing millions of cubic metres of mining debris from the Merthyr Vale Colliery had been deposited over the years, onto highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs. The NCB's area management had been made aware of the concerns regarding the tipping of spoil above the primary school, but these were largely ignored. In the days leading up to the disaster, there had been substantial bursts of heavy rain, which had caused 3–6 metres of subsidence on one of the tips. This then led to more than 150,000 cubic metres of debris breaking away and flowing downhill at high speed.
On 26th October 1966, a tribunal was appointed to inquire into the causes of and circumstances relating to the Aberfan disaster, which was chaired by Welsh barrister and Privy Councillor Lord Justice Edmund Davies.
The Tribunal's report found that
* The blame for the disaster rested entirely with the National Coal Board, and their "total absence of a tipping policy"
* Repeated warnings about the dangerous condition of the tip had been ignored.
* The tips had never been surveyed and were continuously being added to in a chaotic and unplanned manner. The disregard for the unstable geological conditions and the NCB's failure to act after previous smaller slides were found to have been major factors that contributed to the catastrophe.
At 9.15 am on Friday, October 21, 1966, a waste tip above the mining village of Aberfan began to slide down the mountainside, firstly destroying a farm cottage and killing all its occupants. It then approached Pantglas Junior School, where the children had only just returned to their classes after singing All Things Bright and Beautiful at their morning assembly. The slide then engulfed the school and about 20 houses in the village, killing 144 people, including 116 school children.
Workers up in the mountain had seen the slide start, but could not raise the alarm because their telephone cable had been stolen and down in the village, everybody heard the noise, but could see nothing, because of thick fog.
News of the tragedy travelled fast and hundreds of people stopped what they were doing and headed to Aberfan to try and help with the rescue. It was futile, as nobody was rescued alive after 11am and it was nearly a week before all the bodies were recovered.
On Mynydd Merthyr, directly above Aberfan, several tips containing millions of cubic metres of mining debris from the Merthyr Vale Colliery had been deposited over the years, onto highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs. The NCB's area management had been made aware of the concerns regarding the tipping of spoil above the primary school, but these were largely ignored. In the days leading up to the disaster, there had been substantial bursts of heavy rain, which had caused 3–6 metres of subsidence on one of the tips. This then led to more than 150,000 cubic metres of debris breaking away and flowing downhill at high speed.
On 26th October 1966, a tribunal was appointed to inquire into the causes of and circumstances relating to the Aberfan disaster, which was chaired by Welsh barrister and Privy Councillor Lord Justice Edmund Davies.
The Tribunal's report found that
* The blame for the disaster rested entirely with the National Coal Board, and their "total absence of a tipping policy"
* Repeated warnings about the dangerous condition of the tip had been ignored.
* The tips had never been surveyed and were continuously being added to in a chaotic and unplanned manner. The disregard for the unstable geological conditions and the NCB's failure to act after previous smaller slides were found to have been major factors that contributed to the catastrophe.
