Aberfan. 54 years ago today.

[MaidenMotherCrone]

116 children died. 144 people in total.
Just heartbreaking.

Thank you for the reminder OP. I learnt about this when I visited as a child. My auntie and uncle lived nearby and my parents took me. I remember my mum telling me what happened and feeling so sad. Its important that history isn't forgotten and is passed on to the next generation.

The school building and terrace houses look just the same as the valley villages across south Wales look to this day. My kids went to a school that looks just like theirs, it's sobering.

Further to the link above, the WalesOnline coverage from the 50th anniversary has interviews with some survivors who had not previously spoken. It is incredibly distressing so please don't read it if you may be triggered.
aberfan.walesonline.co.uk/

I came across this letter on the 50th anniversary.
Written more than 3 years before the disaster. It could & should have been prevented.
Letter just ignored, apparently

I was born in 1959 so I was of the same era as the children who died in the tragedy. I remember the news coverage of the events in black and white. As I grew older the horror of events sunk in and I'm reminded afresh each year.

@GiantKitten

I came across this letter on the 50th anniversary. Written more than 3 years before the disaster. It could & should have been prevented. Letter just ignored, apparently

Image dropped off, sorry

Yes, to quote one father, their children were buried alive by the National Coal Board. It's not particularly difficult to understand the contempt of many in the surrounding area towards government bodies today.

Such a tragic thing to happen and the fact that it could have been avoided makes it so much more of a national scandal that the coal board got away so lightly. A picture of a child being carried out by a policeman is used in an advert for the Red Cross at the moment and it makes me cry every time it is shown. How those people coped is beyond my imagination.
Rest In Peace all those dear children and villagers.

Thank you for posting OP. This happened in my hometown and my Dad was one of many ordinary people who went to help dig on the day of the disaster. My mum had grown up nearby.
Visiting the cemetery when I was primary school age myself was sobering.

An utter tragedy and wholly preventable. Parallels with Grenfell Tower. The extra insult in Aberfan being the theft of the public donations made to the community.

Remember Aberfan. Cofio Aberfan. 💔

Watched the documentary years ago and found it so heartbreaking. Especially hearing the mum whose daughter didn't want to go...managed to get her to go and thought now can sit down...her daughter died.
And how warnings were ignored and how people were treated afterwards by the coal board. Disgusting.

I was thinking of the poor families of Aberfan this morning, along with the victims of a local disaster here in Glasgow as it's also the 49th Anniversary of the Clarkston Toll Disaster. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-15393422

It's staggering to think of the sheer scale of the Aberfan disaster, especially in one small place. and that it was entirely predictable and preventable. The treatment of the families afterwards was utterly despicable. There was an excellent article on the BBC news site some years ago about it, but it's one of the most disturbing things I've ever read.

@GiantKitten

Sadly
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
😢

I remember it from when I was little. It was horrifying and it has never left me.

And now we have Grenfell where, once again, warnings were ignored and are still being ignored.

Such a terrible tragedy. I saw an interview with a mother whose child survived. The guilt she felt.
The treatment to the families by the government and the coalboard was disgusting.

I cry every year on this date. Its a tragedy so hideous and so close to home. Although many years later, my primary school and surrounding houses looked just like it. I remember a school trip to Aberfan one year, and despite probably being 25+ years after the tragedy, I remember, even at an age too young to truly comprehend it, that the village had an air of such sadness.

I am quite old, but not old enough to remember this. I do remember the impact of it on my parents, though.

All those babies.

Bizarrely, I’ve just watched the episode of The Crown that this features in, and have been reading about it on the internet. Absolutely horrific, those poor children and the fear and desperation their families must’ve felt is incomprehensible. Utterly heartbreaking.

Utterly heartbreaking. Never forgotten.

Not old enough to remember it personally but saw pictures of the graves on the hillside when I was a kid trying to get my head round the fact they had gone to school and never gone home.

My parents had only recently got married and moved to the West Country, when my dad (press photographer) was sent to Aberfan to cover the aftermath of the disaster. He was there for 9 days I think, and was very deeply affected by what he saw.

He must have taken hundreds of pictures, but he only kept one, which was a row of little coffins, which says everything.

Not sure which organisation “owns” the image these days. But this particular copy of it belongs to me.

Parents were interviewed to see how close they were to their dead children. Hard to imagine such unbelievable callousness.

Apparently when the new school was built. The surviving children asked for doors on both sides of the class rooms. So they could get out in an emergency.

Parents were interviewed to see how close they were to their dead children. Hard to imagine such unbelievable callousness.

That was apparently the Charity Commission's plan but thankfully the trustees refused and the plans were dropped so the parents didn't have to suffer that additional insult, but it's horrendous enough that it was considered for even a second.

Another one who has never forgotten the BBC's piece on the 50th anniversary; the testimony in there is so very powerful.

Ironically the BBC has a headline today describing the event as a 'mistake'. I would disagree; it was criminal neglect.