Village Destroyed by Nearby Coal Mine | Last Moments

coal mining has historically been a very taxing job at the best of times taking a high toll on the miners body the work is also dangerous and at the worst of times death was not uncommon in the mines the workers face toxic fumes the risks of being crushed or drowned and the threat of injury from equipment it's safe to say then that coal miners were no strangers to tragedy but in 1966 in a small welsh village the miner was faced with a tragedy that posed no risk to himself nor to his colleagues this time it was the miner's family his children that found themselves victims in what has become known as the saddest day in coal mining history abervan is a village located toward the bottom of the western slope of a valley in wales in 1869 a coal mine was sunk further up the slope from the village at that stage abervan consisted of only several buildings but as the mine grew saw two did the village by 1966 abervan had a population of 5 000 most of whom worked in the coal industry by this time the coal mine now under the control of the national coal board an entity owned by the state had seven spoil tips started along the valley slope a spoiled tip is an accumulated pile of spoil that is waste material removed during mining these seven spoil tips totaled around two million cubic meters of waste some situated on buggy ground or on porous sandstone atop underground springs one such tip being the seventh which was located directly above the village and was over 100 feet tall a quarter mile below this tip was abervan's junior school the monstrous spoiltips sitting atop the slope did not go unnoticed by the residents of abervan which is located in an area that typically sees a lot of rain and frequent flooding numerous complaints and petitions were made to the national coal board by abervan residents who had watched the piles of waste grow atop the valley slopes and were concerned for their safety nothing ever came of these complaints october 1966 saw heavy rainfall in abervan when spoil takes on water it becomes muddy and loses its structural integrity taking on a form similar to quicksand spoil tip 7 sitting atop the underground spring was particularly badly saturated by the excess rainfall during the night of the 20th of october the tip saw some movement and decreased in height as the mound became less and less solid on the morning of the 21st workers starting their shift at 7 30 notice the tip had misshapened and seemed unstable they reported this to their superiors and work was stopped for the day they would have to decide on a new location to begin tipping again but this decision had already come too late by 9 15 am the tip moved again revealing a significant portion of the spoil was no longer solid but a dense liquid by now there is nothing that can be done the tip collapses and slides down the mountain sending around 100 000 cubic meters of spoil hurtling downhill hillside cottages are destroyed and their occupants killed as the mass travels towards abervan as the spoil slides over an embankment and into the village it destroys two water mains pipes the water supply won't be shut off for hours adding an estimated 14 million liters of water to the slide pad glass school sits on the edge of the village and is one of the first buildings to be hit around 240 children between the ages of 7 and 11 are just minutes into their final day before the half term holiday which would begin at noon survivors recall hearing a sound like a plane coming into land interrupting the morning's attendance roll call before a devastating wave of debris crashed into the school flooding it with rubble and waste material dozens of houses in the surrounding area are destroyed as the massive mound of spoil makes its way through the streets before coming to a stop midway through the village the rescue effort begins immediately the coal miners descend upon the village many of them having said goodbye to their children just hours before being experienced in excavation they direct the early digging ensuring residents do not accidentally collapse mounds of spoil or rubble as the rescue effort kicks into gear bodies are dragged from the rubble most are dead some have survived over 20 children and several adults are rescued at 11 am the last survivor is rescued after this all the excavated bodies are lifeless despite this the rescue work continues on relentlessly desperately into the night professional rescue workers make up only a portion of the workforce as minors and residents search for their children over 100 bodies are recovered in all 144 have died 28 adults 116 children 109 of them being in the school cause of death was typically asphyxia fractured skull or multiple crush injuries in the immediate aftermath the abervan disaster fund is set up an outpouring of condolences from the wider public sees 1.75 million pounds raised unfortunately this is not the end of the story secretary of state for wales appointed a tribunal to inquire into the disaster the national call board denied responsibility claiming no one could have known there were underground springs at the site of the spoil tip despite the springs location being marked on maps since the 1800s their claim also alleged that there had been no reason to doubt the tip's safety despite the fact that there had been complaints and even prior minor incidents the tribunal laid the blame for the incident squarely at the coal board's feet saying our strong and unanimous view is that the abervan disaster could and should have been prevented we were not unmindful of the fact that strong words of colomny had been used before our inquiry began but the report which follows tells not of wickedness but of ignorance ineptitude and a failure in communications ignorance on the part of those charged at all levels with the sighting control and daily management of tips bungling ineptitude and part of those who had the duty of supervising and directing them and failure on the part of those having knowledge of the factors which affect tip safety to communicate that knowledge and to see that it was applied the tribunal added that legal liability for victim compensation lay directly with the national coal board bereaved parents were initially offered 50 pounds each this figure was later changed to 500 pounds with the call board claiming it was a generous amount in the years following the disaster abervan residents demanded that the remaining tips be removed as they still loomed over the village below the national coal board resisted this insisting the cost was too much the government eventually came to an agreement that saw both themselves and the coal board each paying 350 000 pounds towards the removal of the tips and an additional 150 000 pounds was forcibly contributed from the abervan disaster fund it was only in 1997 that the secretary of state for wales repaid the 150 000 pounds to the disaster fund although this did not account for decades of inflation and interest which amounted to over a million pounds in 2007 the welsh government finally donated the appropriate amount the disaster which had been caused by negligence and the fight for justice following it had a profound effect on the surviving residents of abervan a community which saw nearly half of its young children killed many adults had lost their families many children lost their friends for a long time the surviving children did not go out to play as a result of both their struggle to cope with the trauma of their ordeal and the fact that many bereaved parents in the village could not bear to see children playing many developed ptsd and survivors guilt it's a frightening thought that so many innocent lives could be taken in an accident that was completely beyond their control despite their attempts to prevent it even more frightening is the lengths those who had the power to prevent it went to to avoid responsibility the coal mines are closed now the risk of a similar accident eradicated abervan may continue its peaceful existence but in the minds of the survivors the tragedy will live on the distant echo of a memory powering down the mountainside [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Qxir

Views: 352,537

Keywords: aberfan, wales, coal mining, colliery, mine, waste, landslide, explained, footage, disaster, irish, welsh, uk, village

Id: PcX_dBV7ktg

Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 15 2021