Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Aberfan Disaster

Episode Date: August 14, 2021

On Friday, October 21, 1966, the small Welsh village of Aberfan suffered woke up to a typical autumn day. Many of the men in the village went to work at the local coal mine and the children went to the local school. At 9:15 am, the lives of everyone in the village had changed forever. The village suffered one of the worst industrial accidents in British history. Learn more about the Aberfan Disaster, its causes, and its aftermath, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Friday, August 21, 1966, the small village of Aberfan Wales woke up to a typical autumn day. Many of the men in the village went to work at the local coal mine, and many of the children went to the local school. At 9.15 a.m., the lives of everyone in the village had changed forever. The village suffered one of the worst industrial accidents in British history. Learn more about the Aberfan disaster, its causes, and its aftermath on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by Brilliant.org. Brilliant's mission is to inspire and develop people to achieve their goals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, one person, one question, and one small commitment to learning at a time. They enable great teachers to illuminate the soul of math, science, and engineering through bite-sized interactive learning experiences. Their courses explore the laws that shape our world, elevating math and science from something to be feared

to a delightful experience of guided discovery. If you're interested in learning more about any STEM subject, go to Everything- Everywhere.com slash Brilliant. Once again, That's everything-dash everywhere.com slash brilliant. The village of Aberfan is located in the southeast of Wales. In 1966, the village had a population of about 5,000 people, and almost every family had some involvement in the nearby coal mine. The history of the village was intrinsically tied up with the coal industry. In 1869, the Merthor Vale Colerie was established,

which was the basis of the founding of the village. And for those who are not familiar with the word, a colgary is a British term for a coal mine. mine and its associated buildings. The primary mine complex was actually located at the top of a mountain overlooking the village in the rest of the valley. The coal mine, along with all the other coal mines in the country, were nationalized in 1947 and were controlled by the British National Coal Board, or NCB.

The origins of the disaster began with a relatively normal part of most coal mines, a spoil tip. A spoil tip goes by several different names, but it's basically a giant pile of residual waste from the mining process. In this case, all of the stuff that wasn't coal would be put on a giant pile outside the mine. In Eberfan, there were seven spoil tips at the site, and the one in question was tip number seven, which was started in 1958, eight years earlier. It had reached a height of 111 feet or 34 meters, and it contained approximately 297,000 cubic yards or 227,000 cubic meters of material. This, in and of itself, wasn't controversial. Most mines have such a pile,

and they usually are only dangerous if someone's climbing on it. In this case, however, there were several problems. For starters, the pile was located on a mountain slope overlooking the village below. Second, the pile was built on top of a natural spring. That meant there was a steady stream of water coming out from the bottom of the pile, and that the ground below the pile was perpetually soft and wet. Finally, the area around Aberfan was one of above average rainfall. In October 1966, there had been 110 millimeters or 6.5 inches of rain, and half of that came in just the last week. This was the state of things on the morning of Friday, October 21st. A giant pile of mining waste material stood over the town on wet ground, and the whole thing had become soaked in rain.

The evening before the disaster, the pile of debris had actually dropped by 10,000. 10 feet, the height of a basketball hoop. The rails which brought material to the pile had fallen into a sinkhole. This was discovered at 7.30 a.m. and attention to the activity was brought to the supervisor on site. He decided that work on the pile for the day would halt until they could determine a new place for the mining debris. Down below in the village, the day began with adults going to work or going shopping and children going to school. In particular, students were just starting to arrive at Panclass junior school. At 9.15 a.m. the bottom of the spoil tip gave out, and the entire water-soaked mass of debris began rushing down the mountain towards the town below.

The debris flowed down the mountainside at a top speed of 20 miles per hour, with a wave estimated to be between 20 to 30 feet or 6 to 9 meters high. The debris slammed into the houses and buildings in the village, demolishing everything in its path. The buildings that weren't demolished were filled with a black, wet mass of sludge and rubble. The Pant-Class Junior School was directly in the flow which came down the mountain. From the time the pile began to slide to the moment it came to rest was probably under one minute. A total of 144 people were killed in the avalanche, 128 of which were children between the ages of 7 and 10, the vast majority of which were inside the Pant-Class Junior School.

Rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that the slurry that ran down the mountain began to solidify almost immediately. The mine was notified right away, and miners were down in the village within 20 minutes to begin rescue efforts. The entire scene of black debris down the side of the mountain and into the town looked like a lava flow.

Despite the best efforts of rescuers, no one was brought out of the debris after 11 a.m. was alive. The institutional reaction to the disaster was very mixed. The head of the National Coal Board, Lord Robbins, decided not to visit Aberfan, and instead went to a ceremony to get invested as a chancellor of a university.

His staff then lied to one of the Welsh members of Parliament, saying that he was on the site directing relief efforts. The Prime Minister Harold Wilson, to his credit, told the Welsh Secretary of State to, quote, take whatever action he thought necessary, irrespective of any considerations of normal procedures, expenditure, or statutory limitations, unquote. Wilson arrived that evening to call for an inquiry into the cause of the disaster.

111 bodies were recovered by the next morning. The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, showed up to meet with rescuers and to console families. That evening, Lord Robin finally showed up and told the media that the NCB, quote, would not seek to hide behind any legal loophole or make any legal quibble about responsibility, end quote. However, the very next day, Sunday, Lord Robin and the National Coal Board were already beginning to deny responsibility. He was now saying, quote, I wouldn't have thought myself that anyone would know that there was a spring deep in the heart of a mountain, any more than I could tell you that there's one under our feet where we are now. If you're asking me, did any of my people on the spot know that there was the spring water, then the answer is no. They couldn't possibly know.

End quote. This was, of course, not true. More on that in a bit. Over the next week, funerals began for the victims. On October 27th, there was a mass funeral for 81 children. people began questioning the absence of the Queen who finally showed up on October 28th. She has subsequently said that not going to Aberfan immediately has been her biggest regret as Queen. A tribunal to determine the cause of the disaster was begun even before all the bodies were buried. 136 witnesses testified over 76 days, and along every step of the way, the National Coal Board did everything in their power to resist having the blame pointed at them.

It turned out that it was a well-known fact that there was a spring under the tip and that three years earlier residents of the village brought this to the attention of the coal board. However, they were told to let the subject rest or threatened to close the mine. The tribunal closed in April of 1967 and concluded, quote, blame for the disaster rests upon the National Coal Board. This blame is shared, though in varying degree, among the National Coal Board headquarters, the Southwestern Divisional Board, and certain individuals. Legal liability of the National Coal Board to pay compensation for the personal injuries,

fatal and otherwise, and property damage is uncontestable and uncontested. The Coal Board, however, did everything they could to resist. The cost of cleaning up the debris in the village had to come from donations to a disaster relief fund, not from the coal board. Likewise, each family with a child that died had to prove to the coal board that they were close to their child in order to get 500 pounds in compensation for mental suffering. 30 years after the incident, documents from the coal board became available to the public, and an academic study was conducted on the disaster.

They concluded that the National Coal Board was monstrously insensitive, at fault, and engaged in a cover-up to avoid blame. The Coal Board mostly put their safety efforts in the mines and neglected safety on the surface. In 1997, 31 years after the disaster, 150,000 pounds, the cost of the cleanup in 1966 was returned to the village, but there was no adjustment for inflation or interest paid. No one was ever fired, reprimanded, demoted, fined, or imprisoned after the disaster. In 1969, new legislation was passed regarding tips to ensure that another disaster would never happen again. And in 1989, the coal mine and Aberfan shut its doors for good.

The Aberfan disaster remains one of the largest industrial disasters in Britain. British history. Not just because of the number of lives lost, but because of how it took away an entire generation of children from a single village. The associate producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. If you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them. Also remember, if you leave a five-star review, I'll read your review on the show.