[14][19] In May 1963 Tip 7 shifted slightly; in November that year there was a more substantial slide.
Aberfan by Duhalan is a history based song which details the events surrounding the 1966 Aberfan coal disaster which killed multitudes in South Wales.
The tribunal censured him for failing to question why there was no tipping policy, because he did not introduce relevant procedures, and to review what poor system was already in place. It received nearly 88,000 contributions, totalling £1.75 million. Once the slide material had come to a halt, it re-solidified. The fund set up by the mayor of Merthyr Tydfil grew rapidly, and within a few months nearly 88,000 contributions had been received, totalling £1,606,929; the final total raised was £1.75 million. Tips 4, 5 and 7 had been sited on streams or springs. [126][127][k] No specific aims for the fund had been outlined by the mayor until it was put on a firm legal footing under the auspices of a permanent committee with clear local representation. [150], In 1969, as a result of concerns raised by the disaster, and in line with the findings of the tribunal report, the government framed new legislation to remedy the absence of laws and regulations governing mine and quarry spoil tips. [145], The residents of Aberfan petitioned George Thomas, who had succeeded Hughes as Secretary of State for Wales in April 1968, for the tips to be removed; they entered the Welsh Office and left a small pile of coal slurry on the table in front of him to make their point; Thomas later stated the tips "constitute a psychological, emotional danger" to the people of Aberfan. Area Civil Engineer: he had visited the tip in April 1965 and, although he claimed not to have seen anything untoward, the tribunal considered that "it is impossible to understand how, with his trained eyes, he could have failed to detect those unusual signs visible in the photographs". [36] The adjacent secondary school was also damaged, and 18 houses on surrounding roads were destroyed.
He was interviewed by a television news team while examining the tip. [129][130] In November 1967 the commission threatened to remove trustees of the disaster fund or make a financial order against them if they made grants to parents of children who were physically uninjured but who were suffering mentally—some surviving children complained of being afraid of the dark and loud noises, while some refused to sleep alone; the commission informed them that any payments would be "quite illegal". [42], After the landslide stopped, local residents rushed to the school and began digging through the rubble, moving material by hand or with garden tools.
[46] The first miners from the Aberfan colliery arrived within 20 minutes of the disaster, having been raised from the coal seams where they had been working. He had never visited the tips at Aberfan, despite having visited the colliery several times, and had even discussed alterations to tipping procedure there. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury also refused to pay, and said that the costs were too high. [173][174] The payment was made in part after Iain McLean's examination of the papers released by the government. Two doctors examined the bodies and issued death certificates; the cause of death was typically asphyxia, fractured skull or multiple crush injuries. I saw that the houses in Moy Road had vanished in a mass of tip-waste material and that the Junior School gable-ends, or part of the roof, were sticking up out of this morass. [55][73][f] The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Aberfan on 29 October to pay their respects to those who had died. There were two further deaths attributed to the disaster: a 19-year-old youth (the brother of a boy saved from the school) who collapsed and died from heart trouble while taking part in the rescue, and a 22-year-old soldier who had been assisting with the clear-up who died while hitch-hiking back to his regiment. When the Merthyr Vale Colliery was sunk on 23 August 1869 by John Nixon and partners, Aberfan consisted of two cottages and an inn frequented by local farmers and bargemen. [117] Robens had received a copy of the inquiry report ten days before its official publication and began a campaign to strengthen his position. [149] At the time, the Charity Commission made no objection to this action; the political scientists Jacint Jordana and David Levi-Faur consider the payment "unquestionably unlawful" under charity law. 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. [175] In February 2007 the Welsh Government announced a donation of £1.5 million to the Aberfan Memorial Charity and £500,000 to the Aberfan Education Charity, which represented an inflation-adjusted amount of the money taken. The tribunal reported that "All things considered, and although he is doubtless a good, overworked and conscientious man, ... [he] must shoulder a heavy portion of the blame for its occurrence.". [139][140] The Aberfan Memorial Charity oversees the upkeep of the memorial garden and Bryntaf Cemetery, and provides financial assistance to "all those who have suffered as a result of the Aberfan Disaster by making grants of money or providing or paying for items, services or facilities calculated to reduce the need, hardship or distress of such persons".[141]. Everybody Has a Story 2. Many families thought the amount insufficient and petitioned the NCB for an increase; NCB insurance staff advised Robens that "it is only the hard core [of bereaved parents] who are trying to capitalize".[115][124][125]. The inspectors had worked as engineers in the coal industry and were former employees of the NCB. [52] In his autobiography, Robens stated that the decision for him not to go was because "the appearance of a layman at too early a stage inevitably distracts senior and essential people from the tasks upon which they should be exclusively concentrating". The evening breeze continues to fuss around the valley slopes once more. [49], With the two broken water mains still pumping water into the spoil in Aberfan, the slip continued to move through the village, and it was not until 11:30 am that the water authorities managed to turn off the supply. The inquiry report also advised that "action needs to be taken to safeguard the future condition of the tips at Aberfan". After arguments from lawyers for the trust, they agreed that there was an "unprecedented emotional state" surrounding Aberfan, and suggested that sums of no more than £500 should be paid. In an interview with The Observer, Robens said the organisation "will not seek to hide behind any legal loophole or make any legal quibble about responsibility". The long title of the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969 was "An Act to make further provision in relation to tips associated with mines and quarries; to prevent disused tips constituting a danger to members of the public; and for purposes connected with those matters". [176] The money to the memorial charity was used in the upkeep of the memorials to the disaster.[177]. [178] In October 2016, the fiftieth anniversary of the disaster, memorial events took place at the garden and at the cemetery; the Prince of Wales represented the Queen, and government ministers were present to pay tribute. [54] NCB officers covered up for him when contacted by Cledwyn Hughes, the Secretary of State for Wales, falsely claiming that Robens was personally directing relief work. The counsel for the families, Desmond Ackner, QC, attacked Robens for making the statement about the spring, saying it was "a public scandal"; he added that "at no stage throughout this Inquiry has the National Coal Board taken the initiative to correct this sentence". Their visit coincided with the end of the main rescue phase; only one contracting firm remained in the village to continue the last stages of the clear-up.
They were begun in the following years: Small sinkings were not uncommon on the tips, normally measuring 3–4 feet (90–120 cm). As someone who had selected four of the tip sites—including for Tips 4 and 7—the tribunal considered that he "must be blamed in some measure for starting tip 7". She had been sacked after she refused to continue working night shifts, stating that it had brought on flashbacks from 1966, when she had been buried waist-deep in the landslide while walking to school. 7 was changed from that of a solid to that of a heavy liquid of a density of approximately twice that of water. [142] The NCB had received a range of estimated costs for removing the tips, from £1.014 million to £3.4 million. [39], Some staff died trying to protect the children.
In November that year part of the tip slid 1,600 feet (490 m) down the mountain to stop approximately 500 feet (150 m) above the village. There were seven spoil tips on the slopes above Aberfan; Tip 7—the one that slipped onto the village—was begun in 1958 and, at the time of the disaster, was 111 feet (34 m) high. [c] G. M. J. Williams, a consultant engineer who gave evidence at the subsequent tribunal, stated that the 9:15 am movement: took part of the saturated material past the point where liquefaction occurred. [115] During a parliamentary debate on the disaster, Margaret Thatcher—then the opposition spokeswoman on power—raised the situation of one witness, criticised by the inquiry, who had subsequently been promoted to a board-level position at the NCB by the time the report was published. Personal dislike of the Area Mechanical Engineer meant the two men did not liaise with one another, and the Area Civil Engineer should, like the Area Mechanical Engineer, take a heavy share of the blame. The official inquiry established that the slip happened so fast that a telephone warning would not have saved any lives. They touch on issues of public accountability, responsibility, competence and transparency. [118] Their opinion is that "the Coal Board 'spin-doctored' its way out of trouble, controlling the public agenda from the day of the disaster until the tips were finally removed". [134][l] £100,000 was set aside for the future needs of the eight children physically injured in the disaster, and £5,000 was placed in trust for them for when they came of age. All messages of support to him were catalogued by the NCB, and copies of some were leaked to the press;[119] the manoeuvring led to criticism in an editorial in The Guardian, which stated that "the Coal Board's behaviour has ... been rather unseemly in the circumstances".
[e] It was estimated that the mains added between 2 and 3 million imperial gallons (9–14 million litres) of water to the spoil slurry. The smaller Aberfan Calvinistic Chapel nearby was used as a second mortuary from 22 to 29 October. Those hymns were very moving and soothing. It takes over an hour to shut down mains water supplies, and the valves for the feeder pipes, which needed to be operated manually, were spread out over several branches. The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip in Wales on 21 October 1966. Clearing was paid for by a government grant and a forced contribution of £150,000 taken from the memorial fund. Although the government had initially favoured landscaping—an option cheaper than removal—they were eventually persuaded that removal was preferable. There are two tips right at the top of the old tip, to be seen glaring at us every day, full of threat.
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. "[109] Despite these problems, during the five years after the disaster the birth rate rose considerably, in marked contrast to that of Merthyr Tydfil.