I wrote this for Facebook five years ago on the 50th anniversary, but fuck it, I'll cross post here.
Also: FUN FACT! 40% of the UK's coal tips are in Wales. Thanks to their age and the increase in extreme weather events from climate change, they're going to cost between 500 and 600 million pounds in the next 15 years to stabilise.
Today is the 50th anniversary of Aberfan, but I suspect a lot of people probably don't know much about it by now. 50 years is a long time, to be fair. But also, a shit ton of stuff came out about it more recently that I think even people who remember it happening don't know about? So, I thought I might make a post-note-thingy to bring everyone up to speed.
So, the short of it for those completely not in the know is: on October 21st 1966, a coal tip on top of a mountain in the South Wales Valleys collapsed, causing what was essentially a landslide to rush down the slope and engulf the tiny village of Aberfan. It demolished houses; but perhaps more poignantly, it also hit Pantglas Junior school. The really upsetting thing here is that Aberfan was, and is, a tiny place - those children meant an entire generation was lost. And with terrible timing - had the spoil moved minutes earlier they’d have been in the playground and seen it coming, and been able to escape. Had it moved a few hours later, half term would have started, and no one would have been there.
Well, I say that - the really upsetting thing is that it was inherently avoidable. The above is the short version of events. This is the longer.
When the National Coal Board were picking where to build the tip they chose a site of sandstone, which as you intelligent and learned types all know, Facebookers, is porous, and the sandstone sat over multiple natural springs, which as you intelligent and learned types all know, Facebookers, are fucking everywhere in Wales, a country that literally lists rain as one of its main exports. The springs were clearly marked on maps of the neighbourhood, and more importantly, the locals all went and bloody told the NCB. Local children literally used to play in them. Sadly, in the history of Welsh Peasants vs English Mineral Barons, the day has never swung to the Welsh. So the tip got built directly above Aberfan on the side of Mynydd Merthyr.
In the years leading up to the disaster, three different coal tips at Aberfan had minor slips (including Tip Number 7, in fact; the one that would later cause the disaster). Multiple letters were written to the National Coal Board outlining the risks from both rainwater and the underlying springs, and they wrote multiple letters back, showing they were aware of the risk. One even acknowledged the risk to the school, in fact. But no one moved the tips. Why? Because the two men responsible for it didn't like each other, and refused to work with one another on the report.
In the weeks leading up to the disaster, the heavens opened and a Biblical deluge descended upon South Wales. It particularly pissed it down on October the 21st, 1966, and the side of Waste Tip Number 7 became so saturated that 120,000 cubic metres broke off and flowed down the mountain, the front part having liquefied, in a wave 12 metres high. 40,000 cubic metres smashed through a row of houses and into Pantglas Junior School. Eyewitnesses who survived talked afterwards of the noise, saying it was so loud they thought a plane was crashing on them. One teacher ordered them to hide under their desks. Parents rushed up there to try to claw their children out by hand, and were quickly joined by miners from the Merthyr Vale Colliery (later joined by more from the Deep Navigation and the Taff Merthyr Collieries.) As the news spread, hundreds upon hundreds of people rushed to Aberfan to help, until the quantity of untrained volunteers were actually getting in the way of the trained operatives who had arrived. Meanwhile, more mud and water was in free-fall down the mountain, making things harder; that, and a water pipe in the town was also destroyed, meaning even more flooding in town, and more hindrance to the rescuers.
The school was hit at 9.13. No one was pulled out alive after 11.
So with the sheer scale of the disaster now in mind, at this point, Facebookers, let’s take a quick look at the actions of Lord Robens of Woldingham.
Now, this colossal dick fungus was the Chairman of the National Coal Board at the time of the disaster. He was notable by his absence. The Secretary of State for Wales, Cledwyn Hughes, obviously started ringing him to find out when he was going to turn up - lest we forget, the NCB had merrily built a coal tip on unsuitable land against local protestations and had now inevitably killed 116 kids and 28 adults, so you’d sort of expect the festering piece of knob-skin in charge of the damn thing to get his bony hide over there and at least have the decency to look a bit sad. But it was in Wales, so Lord Robens hoped no one would give a shit and would move on, and so went to his investiture as Chancellor of the University of Surrey instead.
Yes, you read that right - he found out he'd caused and allowed 116 children to be buried alive, but he wanted to go to a fancy ceremony in his honour that would let him be a university Chancellor.
And his office covered up for him by lying to Cledwyn Hughes, claiming that Lord Robens was actually at Aberfan and personally directing the rescue efforts. One can only assume they didn’t realise how small Aberfan is, and thus how instantly you can tell if someone isn’t there.
So, on the evening of the following day, Lord Robens finally deigned to turn up at the site of mass death he was responsible for, whereupon he told the first camera he saw, in front of all the locals who had been telling them not to build the damn tip there, that there was nothing that could have been done to avoid the disaster, because the tip had been built on UNKNOWN NATURAL SPRINGS.
He wasn’t finished either, Facebookers. Naturally, the locals were ready to commit murder if the remaining tips around the village weren’t removed, but at first, the government refused, saying it would be too expensive. The locals, obviously, objected, and so stormed the buildings of the Welsh Office in Cardiff and poured bags of slurry through the offices. Perhaps, they suggested, the government might like to live with it instead. After the court case (see below), Lord Robens of Woldingfuck refused to use NCB funds to finance moving the tips, instead demanding a huge sum of money from the public disaster relief fund. £150,000, to be precise, which was a full 10% of the fund.
This endeared him to no one, even including his dear elderly white-haired mother. No word on whether or not he had to get a squad of ninjas to protect him from the locals, but I presume he did.
Then came the enquiries, where the standard ‘oh god we’re talking to Welsh peasants’ mentalities came out. The press had also behaved like a bag of smashed arseholes over the whole thing, including the notable account of a photographer telling a six-year-old child who had been pulled alive out of the mud to cry over the bodies of her dead mates to make a better picture. Add that to Lord Bollocks of Woldingfuck pricking about, and the locals had really been pushed around. At the enquiry into the deaths of the first 30 children, their names and causes of death were read out; there were shouts of ‘Murder!’ in the court. Then one boy’s name was read out, and his death reported as asphyxia and multiple injuries. His father stood up.
“No sir,” he told the judge clearly. “Buried alive by the National Coal Board.”
At which point the judge AND CAN YOU IMAGINE PATRONISING SOMEONE LIKE THIS told him:
“I know your grief is much that you may not be realising what you are saying - ”
“I want it recorded – ‘Buried alive by the National Coal Board.’” the father interrupted. “That is what I want to see on the record. That is the feeling of those present. Those are the words we want to go on the certificate.”
No word on whether or not that patronising piece of shit Judge died of knob rot in a foreign jail, but I like to think so.
Finally, our Cledwyn had enough at the asshattery of all involved, and so on the 26th October 1966 he appointed his own goddam inquiry and got in respected Welsh barrister and Privy Councillor Lord Justice Edmund Davies, in the hope that maybe then the locals of Aberfan would not become so incensed that they would resurrect Zombie Owain Glyndwr and march on the border, which was becoming a distinct option by that point; plus, our Cledwyn wanted some actual pissing answers. It became known as the Davies Inquiry, which Wikipedia informs me was, at that time, the longest inquiry of its type in British history at 76 days (“interviewing 136 witnesses, examining 300 exhibits and hearing 2,500,000 words of testimony.”)
Now, you may have picked up that there was definite fault with the NCB. You may have somehow inferred that. You may have read between the lines and thought, 'But Elanor, surely when the NCB were told not to put a coal tip on top of springs, and when the springs were even marked on the map, and then they did it anyway, surely only a goat or monkey could find the NCB innocent, especially when such a long inquiry was held?’
You are correct, Facebookers. And thus it was that in the final days of the inquiry, Lord Pissy Jizzbollock of Shittingfuck realised all was lost and essentially turned himself in, giving evidence to the inquiry that basically went 'Okay, you got us, the NCB should have been more careful, what are we like’.
The final findings of the Davies Inquiry:
“…the Aberfan disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above… Blame for the disaster rests upon the National Coal Board. This is shared, though in varying degrees, among the NCB headquarters, the South Western Divisional Board, and certain individuals … The legal liability of the NCB to pay compensation of the personal injuries, fatal or otherwise, and damage to property, is incontestable and uncontested.”
They also found the NCB had been piss-poor at maintaining the tip anyhow, and confirmed that it had already suffered multiple minor landslides before the one that killed Aberfan’s children. Such is the history of environmental law, though.
Anyway, at this point Lord Fuck Off clearly realised that he had possibly fucked up big time here and so offered his resignation, but BRACE YOURSELVES.
His resignation was rejected by Harold Wilson, because Robens was good with Unions, and Wilson hated the Unions and so wanted to keep him active. Furthermore, nine members of the NCB were flagged as being to blame. No one ever received so much as a demotion. There were no repercussions whatsoever for anyone who had just caused the deaths of 116 children.
Compensation-wise: the NCB paid out compensation to the tune of £500 per child (in old money - today worth about £6512). Then the public also paid loads of money into a relief fund.
Here's the bit the people who remember all this happening may not know. Recently, we finally got to read the documents about how that money was managed. From Wikipedia:
"The management of this fund caused considerable controversy over the years. Many aspects of the aftermath of the Aberfan Disaster remained hidden until 1997, when the British Public Records Office released previously embargoed documents under the thirty year rule. These documents revealed new information about the machinations of Lord Robens, the NCB and the Charity Commission in the wake of the Aberfan Disaster.
At one point the Charity Commission planned to insist that before any payment was made to bereaved parents, each case should be reviewed to ascertain if the parents had been close to their children and were thus likely to be suffering mentally. At another meeting, the Commission threatened to remove the Trustees of the Disaster Fund or make a financial order against them if they went ahead with making grants to parents of children who had not been physically injured that day, and the Trustees were forced to abandon these payments.[20]
Although the Davies Report had found that the NCB’s liability was “incontestable and uncontested” and it was widely felt that the NCB should have to bear the entire cost of removing the dangerous tips above Aberfan, Robens refused to pay the full cost, thereby putting the Trustees of the Disaster Fund under “intolerable pressure”. Robens then “raided” the Fund for £150,000 to cover the cost of removing the tips – an action that was “unquestionably unlawful” under charity law – and the Charity Commission took no action to protect the Fund from Robens’s dubious appropriation of funds.[21]"
So, to sum up: They didn't want the people of Aberfan to actually have that money. The Charity Commission put parents through invasive and harrowing questioning to male sure they'd liked their dead kids sufficiently before they'd pay them compensation - and can you begin to imagine the trauma of that? When you're already torturing yourself over every cross word you ever might have said, over having sent them to school that morning, over everything? And along comes some screaming fuckweasel and demands to know if you truly loved your child? If you ever argued? If you were ever exasperated by them? They ask your neighbours, your friends, if you showed enough affection?
The Charity Commission decided mental health did not exist. No dead child? Tough! You must be entirely fine and unaffected by having dug your barely-breathing child out of a tomb! The child is fine! No money for you. What do you mean counselling costs?
But oh lordy, back to Lord Bell-end of Twattingjizz again, look.
A court ordered him and the NCB to shoulder the costs of removing the tips and preventing further tragedy, having found that they were responsible.
And instead, he literally stole money from the survivors to do it.
And the Charity Commission let him.
In 2007, the Welsh Government paid £2 million into the fund to replace this money. The fund is still active today, helping the residents of Aberfan with the trauma.
Because hey, as I say, mental health: next came the trauma for the survivors, which is the part they utterly don’t tell you about. Children who had survived got survivors guilt, and never went outside - many couldn’t sleep with doors or windows closed. Multiple patients were prescribed sedatives, but were afraid to take them, desperately listening out to hear if the mountain was moving again. Birth rates, alcohol-related issues and health issues for pre-existing conditions all rose dramatically. Multiple people had breakdowns over the subsequent years. In 2003, the Journal of British Psychiatry published a study into the long-term psychological effects of the disaster. Half of the survivors had had PTSD at some point in their lives; as a group, the survivors were over three times more likely to develop lifetime PTSD than a comparison group who had also experienced life-threatening traumas; and 34% of the survivors still reported nightmares or sleep problems about the disaster.
It may be fifty years today, but Aberfan has not recovered. For so many of them, the whole thing is still happening. And somehow, Lord Robens of Woldingham never did go to fucking jail where he belonged.
And that, for them as don't know, is the tale of the Aberfan Disaster.
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