The Aberfan Disaster (21st October 1966).

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster.

I wrote this article 20 years ago, and 40 years after the event itself, which I remember only too well. I was a young boy at school in Bridgend at the time, and will never forget the shock in the teacher’s voice as he told us all what had happened. 

I also wrote this poem, to try and capture some of the emotions evoked, at least to me. The poem’s structure is inspired by the traditional Welsh form known as Englyn Milwr:


Aberfan.

Long ago, in sixty-six, a slag-heap
slid, so it is said;
so we have read.

It rolled on down and squashed
a school; we didn't know
about the stream.

I was in school and heard
the crash, the teacher's
fear, it was so near.

Just valleys off, my mother's home;
and just the kids,
under the tonnes.

Eight hundred feet, without a rest,
they piled it on,
it had to go;

but no one knew
about the stream,
so it is claimed;

(a pack of lies) the locals knew,
but no one heard -
not even now.

— Chris Rhodes.

A summary: Sixty years ago an enormous slag-heap slid onto a school in the south Welsh coal-mining village of Aberfan. 144 people died, 116 of them children. The cause is now believed to be what engineers call thixotropy, that an underlying stream combined with several days of torrential rain caused the coal/stone debris to turn into a physical state with properties of liquid flow. Knowledge of the stream was denied by the National Coal Board (although it was well known locally) who did all they could to avoid admitting responsibility.

I was just a small boy in South Wales at the time, but I remember that morning well enough, to this day. The effect on the world psyche was something like that of the "Boxing day" tsunami of 2004. "Everyone" wanted to do something to help, and financial assistance was provided from a disaster fund contributed from the pockets of individuals; it took many years for formal compensation to be paid, and bad-feeling remains to this day, over the whole sorry affair.