Resulted in the passing of the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969
The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, 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.
There were seven spoil tips on the hills above Aberfan; Tip 7—the one that slipped onto the village—was started in 1958 and, at the time of the disaster, was 111 feet (34 m) high. In contravention of the NCB's procedures, the tip was partly based on ground from which springs emerged. After three weeks of heavy rain the tip was saturated and approximately 140,000 cubic yards (110,000 m3) of spoil slipped down the side of the hill and onto the Pantglas area of the village. The main building hit was the local junior school, where lessons had just begun; 5 teachers and 109 children were killed.
An official inquiry was chaired by Lord Justice Edmund Davies. The report placed the blame squarely on the NCB. The organisation's chairman, Lord Robens, was criticised for making misleading statements and for not providing clarity as to the NCB's knowledge of the presence of water springs on the hillside. Neither the NCB nor any of its employees were prosecuted and the organisation was not fined.
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. 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 Aberfandisaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh...
known for the Aberfandisaster, when a colliery spoil tip collapsed into homes and a school, killing 116 children and 28 adults. Aberfan is situated toward...
The Tribunal of Inquiry into the AberfanDisaster (the AberfanDisaster Tribunal), chaired by Lord Justice Edmund Davies, was established in 1966 to inquire...
Pantglas Junior School in Aberfan, Wales. She is known in Wales and throughout the UK as one of the heroes of the Aberfandisaster of 1966, sacrificing her...
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row of houses. Iain McLean and Martin Johnes, in a 2000 study of the Aberfandisaster, observed that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Mines went largely unchallenged...
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colliery spoil tip above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales caused the Aberfandisaster. The tip had been created on a mountain slope...
tribunal to inquire into the causes of and circumstances relating to the Aberfandisaster, chaired by Lord Justice Edmund Davies. The 15-member North Atlantic...
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