50 years since Aberfan

Hagar · 21 Oct 2016 at 11:13

Dis86 said:
Wales paid a heck of a price throughout its history for coal. The north east of England wasn't far behind either.

It is almost impossible to believe that anyone could think, even 50 years ago, that putting a waste tip on top of a hill with a spring underneath it, above a village was a sensible thing to do.

Tunney · 21 Oct 2016 at 11:15

It's hard to imagine a town losing a whole generation of children like that. Utterly horrifying.

Andy90 · 21 Oct 2016 at 11:54

nkata said:
It is almost impossible to believe that anyone could think, even 50 years ago, that putting a waste tip on top of a hill with a spring underneath it, above a village was a sensible thing to do.

Not surprising at all. You only have to journey around the North and South Wales Coalfield areas (probably the same in other mining areas) and they stuck the waste tippings wherever the wanted in those days.

Sadly the Aberfan disaster has faded from memory for most people. Add in the fact that a lot of people around at the time are no longer with us and there has been 50 years of people who weren't around at the time (myself included) it is not surprising. It isn't talked about much outside of Wales.

I think the only time my Father ever mentioned it was when we were driving through the village of Dolgarrog near Conwy when I was around 10 years old. It came up because my Father told me that in the 1920's a dam above the village collapsed and killed 16 people - a lot more could have died due to the fact they were in the local theatre watching a film.

Thekwango · 21 Oct 2016 at 12:54

asim18 said:
I wasn't living at all in 1966.

neither was I, I've lived all my life in Northern Ireland and I still know about Aberfan

John40 said:
Seeing as nobody seems to have heard about it I guess schools have stopped talking about it which wasn't always the case.

seems so - I remember being taught about it in primary school. when I say taught, it was more a case of being told about what had happened. very sad and shocking even

LongBridge · 22 Oct 2016 at 12:21

I was told about it first at infant school in the early 1970s just a few years after it happened.

Destination · 22 Oct 2016 at 12:24

I am in my 40's, and I had not heard of this tragedy until last week when radio 2 started advertising a radio show regarding it.
Still haven't heard the details.
I find this quite surprising.

Scotty123 · 22 Oct 2016 at 12:29

Hadn't heard of it until Thursday when an article about it appeared on the BBC news. Very sad indeed.

Danthus · 22 Oct 2016 at 15:15

nkata said:
It is almost impossible to believe that anyone could think, even 50 years ago, that putting a waste tip on top of a hill with a spring underneath it, above a village was a sensible thing to do.

That is sort of the point, at the time, people knew not to do it.

Sliver · 22 Oct 2016 at 15:16

Many sads.

ICEx21 · 22 Oct 2016 at 15:17

John40 said:
What ! have you been living in a cave for your whole life.

No, it's just that not well known these days.

Nitefly · 22 Oct 2016 at 16:31

I'd never heard of it until it was in the news this week - very sad event.

Nitefly · 22 Oct 2016 at 16:35

Also - it is one of those really cruel instances of 'fate'. Why couldn't it happen at night when the school was closed... ffs.

Dis86 · 22 Oct 2016 at 16:51

Nitefly said:
Also - it is one of those really cruel instances of 'fate'. Why couldn't it happen at night when the school was closed... ffs.

It was even worse than that. It happened at the worst time possible. 5 minutes earlier and a lot of the kids wouldn't have been in the school. 5 minutes later and they'd have been dispersed throughout the school

As it was they were all on one side of the school in rooms for registration. It was that side that the slide hit.

A tiny window for the worst possible outcome and that's when it happened.

Django x2 · 22 Oct 2016 at 21:20

It was like a Welsh Pompeii and the behaviour of the then Labour Government was nothing short of atrocious.

wnb · 22 Oct 2016 at 22:55

It's shocking how the government of the day and the National Coal Board reacted to the disaster. No one was prosecuted, demoted or fired.

DJMK4 · 22 Oct 2016 at 23:49

I'm not Welsh but been living here long enough, I don't remember hearing about it in school,
.
Must have been horrible

I only found out the other day when work sent an email round

dowie · 22 Oct 2016 at 23:52

utterly tragic event

nkata said:
It is a fact that there were major mistakes by the NCB and failure to be responsible for their actions or lack of action. Even after the event they were unwilling to pay for removal of existing tips and the charitable donations made for the survivors and relatives paid for this to go ahead.

seems the behaviour of the NCB was utterly disgraceful

diamount · 23 Oct 2016 at 01:07

The people who stole the telephone wiring are also culpable for murder. Who knows what could happen if the village had some early warning.

dowie · 23 Oct 2016 at 02:44

seems crazy that it was a Labour politician that behaved appealingly in the immediate aftermath and it was a Labour govt and Labour minister that still insisted the remaining tips were safe and then raided the relief fund to help pay for the removal of the tips after much campaigning... I mean this community was a strong Labour area

even stranger to see a member of the Tory opposition criticising the Labour Minister of Power re: the safety of the remaining tips that they were reluctant to do anything about... an MP by the name of Marget Thatcher:

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/101587

Before I come to what I have to say about the Report—because it is the Report which we are considering, and not conditions many years ago—I want to refer to one point that disturbed me as it disturbed the hon. Member who raised it during the debate. It concerns Tip No. 5 and the assurance which [ Richard Marsh] the Minister of Power gave when he intervened earlier. What bothered me was what the Report itself said about that tip on page 47:

"One may conclude that No. 5 has been standing and is standing at a very low factor of safety."

When the right hon. Gentleman winds up the debate perhaps he will tell us that remedial action has been taken since then which at any rate has increased that factor of safety. As matters stand in the Report, there is doubt about the safety of that enormous tip.

Turning to the events of what must be the biggest tragedy on the surface in the history of coal mining anywhere in the world, I share the views of the hon. Member who said that, always when tragedy strikes, the person in command should go to the scene as quickly as possible. This may be as a result of my own background of a family company. When anything happens, the person who is head of it goes immediately. There is automatically 1990a certain drill. He is responsible for the whole outfit, and he must go. Before he goes, he summonses his chief lieutenant and gives specific instructions to find the facts as quickly as possible, but he himself goes there to show people that he is there to see what is going on and to extend sympathy, while setting his officials to work immediately.

I regret that Lord Robens did not do that. I am somewhat surprised that he did not, but I will not pursue that further.

While people might not agree with her politics/ideology she was a very principled person.

Orionaut · 23 Oct 2016 at 02:58

I have to say, I am astonished at the number of people who admit to not knowing about this. :confused:

I saw this on the telly as a young child, Even then, in my youth, I fully appreciated just what a devastating thing this was.

It has always haunted me.

I have always felt that I would like to do a drama doc on the tragedy.

I would call it "Pied Piper" (Because the mountain took the children

)