Aberfan disaster

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Heap move in Aberfan 1964: The slipped heap and the destroyed houses are on the left outside the image section.
Slightly different image detail 1968: The free area between the pile of heaps in the center of the image and the vegetation on the left edge marks the slip track.

The Aberfan disaster was a dump slide that claimed 144 lives, 116 of them children, in the mining village of Aberfan near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales on October 21, 1966 .

situation

The Merthyr Vale Colliery colliery, operated by the state National Coal Board (NCB) at the time of the accident , had been using the areas above the town for the filling of heaps for around fifty years . There were seven spoil heaps on the slopes above Aberfan. Work on heap 7 - which slipped onto the village - began in 1958. It was 34 meters high at the time of the disaster. The presence of sources at the tipping points was known (as evidenced by entries on Ordnance Survey cards from 1958, among other things ), but was ignored.

course

After three weeks of heavy rain, the top of heap 7 was saturated. On October 21, 1966, at 9.15 a.m., parts of the tailings slid down Merthyr Mountain. It was about 110,000 cubic meters of overburden. The landslide was caused by an accumulation of water; When a mass movement occurred, the soaked, fine material of a tipping point liquefied and flowed down the mountain. The head of the NCB, Lord Robens , initially named "natural, unknown sources" as the cause of the accident.

The building hit hardest was Pantglas Junior School, where lessons had just started; 5 teachers and 109 children were killed in the school. In total, the masses destroyed twenty houses, a farm, almost the entire Pantglas elementary school and parts of the neighboring middle school.

A total of 144 people were killed, 116 of them children.

Memorial plaque near the destroyed Pantglas Junior School

examination

An official investigation was led by Lord Justice Edmund Davies . The report blamed the NCB. The organization's chairman, Lord Robens , has been criticized for making misleading statements and failing to clarify the NCB's knowledge of the presence of water sources on the mountain. The Aberfan Disaster Memorial Fund (ADMF) was set up on the day of the disaster. Almost 88,000 donations totaling £ 1.75 million were received.

process

The National Coal Board was found guilty of "ignorance, incompetence and lack of communication". The instability of the heap was known to both mine management and workers, but next to nothing was done about it. The Merthyr Tydfil Borough Council and the National Union of Mineworkers were acquitted.

The NCB was sentenced to a settlement payment of £ 500 , which is now roughly € 9,400 per child. Donations received are counted towards this.

The NCB refused to take full responsibility for securing the heap, so part of the donation was used to secure the rest of the heap. On the initiative of the Welsh politician Ron Davies, the NCB had to repay the sum in 1997.

The remaining heaps were only removed after a long struggle by the residents of Aberfan, against opposition from the NCB and the government for cost reasons. The cleanup was paid for through a government grant and a compulsory £ 150,000 contribution from the Memorial Fund. In 1997 the UK government paid the £ 150,000 to the ADMF and in 2007 the National Assembly for Wales donated £ 1.5 million to the fund and £ 500,000 to the Aberfan Education Charity in compensation for the money unduly raised.

Many residents of the village suffered health problems; half of the survivors fell ill with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Merthyr Vale Colliery was closed in 1989.

Trivia

Thom Parrott wrote a song about misfortune.

Sir Karl Jenkins composed the Cantata Memoria to commemorate the victims on the fiftieth anniversary .

The disaster was the main subject of the third episode of the third season of the British television series The Crown in 2019 .

Web links

Commons : Aberfan Disaster  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
  • Aberfan Disaster
  • Aberfan. December 22, 2011, accessed on November 30, 2014 (English, detailed description of the course of the accident with photo of the slipped heap).

Individual evidence

  1. Martin Johnes: Corporatism and Regulatory Failure. Government Response to the Aberfan Disaster. Iain McLean, accessed November 30, 2014 (English, sociology project).
  2. a b 1966: Coal tip buries children in Aberfan. In: BBC - On This Day. Retrieved November 30, 2014 .
  3. This figure was based on the template: Inflation was determined, has been rounded to a full 100 euros and compares the previous January to the year 1966.
  4. Thom Parrott's song Aberfan ( Memento from February 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  5. Karl Jenkins. In: www.boosey.com. Retrieved August 3, 2016 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 41 ′ 41 ″  N , 3 ° 20 ′ 51 ″  W.