Aberfan: 50 years since disaster wiped out a generation 

So sorry for your loss. The ncb should have been held to a lot more responsibility then they were putting a coal tip over a water spring .

Gareth Jones nobody should have had to go through what you and your family went through. My heart breaks for all those lost children, Kelvin and Malcolm included. I was born in my 1963 and I grew up knowing of this horror. So sad, I suppose you should be grateful that your grandparents survived, little consultation though.

🙏

God bless your dad.

Suffering! It's an universal language.

How can it not.

Me too.

Aaron are you from Aberdeen?

Same here...am watching it now..The Crown and I’m heartbroken 😭 what a tragedy!

Same here, the crown truly is a history class, my heart bleeds for those children lost and their families 💔

Me neither until watching The Crown...So tragically sad...

I am American, and 16 at the time. I remember it well.

I'm also American and I remember this in the news because I was just the age of theses kids.

MrJm323 I’m 65 and I remember this at age 12. Here in America, we watched it on the the tv. My mother was so upset.

I am 55 year old American. Like you never heard of Aberfan not even in our history classes did we learn of this tragedy.

@@IrishAnnie I'm 55 and don't remember hearing about this.

The natural spring ran through the slag heap at one time but as more and more was dumped the spring became buried. The workers knew the heap was moving, they'd witnessed large chunks breaking off but didn't report it as they also knew the NCB would shut down the mine if it was deemed unsafe, leaving the whole village out of work. They were trying to protect their community...

@@sarahfox3959 Good morning Sarah. What I did not want to mention was that although not Welsh myself, have family members who had a role to play in the Aberfan disaster. One trying to help prevent it, the other legally helping to obtain higher recompense for those affected by the disaster. One was an engineer for the Ordnance Survey which had warned the colliery (before he was even born) that they were building the slag heaps on top of underground streams clearly marked on Ordnance Survey maps, made years before.(Wikipedia states 1874). I have seen copies of the O.S. maps & the underground streams were, indeed, clearly marked. Even the local people were aware of them, only greed would make one blind to them. As for the miners having witnessed actual movement but not reporting it for fear of losing their jobs, I also know there is multiple records to the contrary. Mining put food on the table & housing rented to the villagers by the colliery, the people did indeed make multiple complaints to the council. Despite multiple letters & face to face meetings during early 1965 from the local council to the N.C.B. resulting in the latter agreeing to clear drainage ditches & clogged pipes. Nothing had been done by October 1966. Again all is stated clearly &, more importantly, correctly in Wiki!! Although miners are looked on as "working class" in the good old U.K., they work hard & in hard & dangerous conditions - miners are heroes. Due to the possibility of poisonous gas inhalation & gas explosions, miners have used various methods to keep themselves safe. Most famously, canaries, flame lamps, which extinguish in the absence of oxygen now, they have more modern electrochemical sensors to keep themselves safe (mainly CO, CO2, CH4 & H2S). However, they would never put their families at risk just to keep a job. The letters sent to the N.C.B. from the Merthyr Tidfyl Council were comprised of warnings of definite movement seen by the miners & reported by them were sadly entitled, "Danger from Coal Slurry being tipped at the rear of the Pantglas Schools". Sorry, for the long reply but Aberfan makes me at once, sad & angry. Without the greed of the N.C.B., 144 peolple, 116 of that number children, would be alive today. Aberfan was preventable. I am so glad you got in touch, Sarah! I pray no such sorrow has, or ever will touch your life.

@@CartePostale.Yes you're right, multiple letters were sent warning of the danger, of what could happen, which were ignored but the workers did know the slag heap was moving and didn't report it for fear of the mine closing, fact. They never dreamed it would reach the village. Those doing the dumping were spat at in the street after the disaster. However, the NCB already knew about the springs and the danger from the height of the slag heaps but did nothing, as you said, out of greed. They denied all knowledge after the disaster, a move I can't understand considering their existence was well documented. I was young when the disaster happened, too young to be emotionally effected but I remember how upset those around me were.

The coal board didn't try to use the donated money, they actually DID use it.

Same

It wasn't God who mined the coal and left the spoil tips where they could wash down onto the village.

@@jfhow Yes...but possibly God could have made it happen 1 hour earlier or 3 hours later when the children weren't in school...I don't know.

Oh yes, let's blame God for human stupidity.

For sure, everything happens is in God's Knowledge. God might punish sinners after decades of injustice and vices and long time of leading joyful sinful life. Sometimes, disasters reveal human errors and cheating so the next generation might learn a lesson to avoid such disasters. When innocent people doomed as children their fate in the after death life will be better than this cheap life. May God have His Mercy on their souls.🌹

Naomi Lee He has the right to feel this way.

I remember this I was ten at the time I was so upset my mum came from near here I thought at the time how frighten I would have been

Me too Grace. So so sad.

It brought us too. Something really really sad.

God?

People remember terrorist attacks, knife crimes, but not devastating tragedies like this one.

Ppl.who are of a certain age remember it..?

Only if you believe God is a puppeteer. Of course they were innocent.

Coal slag and slurry

No, it’s a garden of remembrance