DISASTER IN WELSH MINING VILLAGE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31197, 22 October 1966, Page 1

DISASTER IN WELSH MINING VILLAGE

19 Killed, 160 Children Reported Missing (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MERTHYR TYDFIL, October 21. At least 19 people were killed and 160 children reported missing when a huge coal-mine rubbish tip collapsed on a nursery school today. The bodies of 12 children and two adults were pulled out of the ruins of the school.

More than 1000 rescue workers clawed with hands and with tools at the thick chunks of rock that tumbled down upon the school and a row' of eight terrace houses.

Some children were pulled out alive and one Civil Defence report said some of the houses had been evacuated

The bodies of five people who died in the row of houses have been recovered.

The nursery school was almost completely covered in coal dust.

Casualties from the collapsed houses were recovered from the debris and sent to hospital.

Access to the nursery school was almost impossible, and rescue workers were up to their knees in places in wet coal dust and slime in the main roads.

One lane leading into the centre of the village looked like a river, with water flooding downhill into the terraced houses.

Merthyr's deputy borough engineer, Mr John F. Bradley, said: "The colliery tip just slid.

“It is like a glacier, and it is still moving, four hours after it started. “We don’t know where it is going to end.” Dust-grimed miners—some of whom had children at the school—downed tools at a nearby colliery and rushed to the scene. Bulldozers rumbled towards the school. Troops were ordered to stand by. Three hours after the huge rubbish-tip had collapsed, the avalanche was still moving slowing through the village of Aberfan where the school was situated. A state of emergency was declared in the little mining village. Torrents 'of flood-water oozed through the mass of debris, keeping it on the move. It was the rain water, which became dammed up behind

the tip, that was believed to have caused the landslide. Afterwards the water poured through the streets, often knee-high, and hampered rescue operations. More than 200 young children had just started morning lessons when the avalanche struck. Still Alive “It was as if an earthquake had happened. You could see some of the building, but the rest of it was buried. It happened in a matter of minutes. “We found four little children underneath a lot of brickwork which had slipped down on top of them. One small boy was still alive. He was standing against the heater in the schoolroom and was crying because his leg had been caught in something.“Standing by his seat were three other little children. They were dead. Several classrooms of the school collapsed, and I only saw one room which had not been too severely damaged.” Roll Call As the children were pulled from the wreckage a roll call was held. Roll calls are familiar in the mining villages of south Wales. They follow every pit disaster. Then it is the miners’ names which are called. This time it was their children’s. The coal tip—-a feature of Britain’s coalfields—is a small mountain of pit waste standing alongside the pit superstructure and used daily to dump rubbish from underground. In recent years the National Coal Board has been attempting reclamation work on these tips by levelling work. A National Coal Board spokesman in Cardiff said the position was complicated by the fall damming up the streams, and flood waters are rising rapidly. As the children were pulled from the wreckage of what was once their school by rescuers they were taken to

nearby hospitals in Merthyr Tydfil. The school is for junior infants. The headmistress of a neighbouring school said “1 am beseiged with telephone calls from anxious mothers worrying about the safety of their little children.”

The Mayor of Merthyr Tydfil, the Town Clerk, education officer and many councillors and corporation officials joined in the rescue work.

A Civil Defence spokesman said: “All available earth moving equipment such as bulldozers went to the scene.”

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