SO0600 : Aberfan Cemetery
taken 11 years ago, near to Aberfan, Merthyr Tydfil/Merthyr Tudful, Wales
Aberfan was the site of one of the worst ever peacetime disasters to occur in the UK. On the morning of 21 October 1966 a tip, where waste from Merthyr Vale Colliery was heaped up, slid down onto Pantglas Junior School destroying most of the school as well as a farm and twenty houses. Children in the school had just left their morning assembly when an avalanche of half a million tonnes of waste debris crashed in to the classrooms. 116 children aged 7-10 were killed out of a total death toll of 144. The subsequent inquiry firmly blamed the National Coal Board, which owned and managed the colliery; the tip, which covered several springs, was known to be unstable - there had been slides before - and prior to the day of the disaster there had been a prolonged period of rain.