Summary
The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip in the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, that killed 116 children and 28 adults on 21 October 1966. The collapse was caused by the build-up of water in the accumulated rock and shale tip, which suddenly slid downhill in the form of slurry. The classrooms at Pantglas Junior School were immediately inundated; young children and teachers died from impact or suffocation. Many noted the poignancy of the situation: if the disaster had struck a few minutes earlier, the children would not have been in their classrooms, and if it had struck a few hours later, they would have left for the half-term holiday.
Key Learnings / Issues
- Suitable standards, codes of practice and legislation are in place and are reviewed and updated to ensure that schemes are planned, sustainable and designed for safety.
- Regulation is suitably informed by targeted research.
- Design, construction, management, inspection and regulatory professionals are always appropriately qualified and experienced.
- Lessons are learned, captured, disseminated and fed back into future designs and also kept alive in the minds of the future generations of engineers.
- Never forget the societal, community and health impacts of getting engineering so lamentably wrong.
Quote
“What we can do is try to focus on the lessons of Aberfan, lessons which are still of profound relevance today. They touch on issues of public accountability, responsibility, competence and transparency.”
Huw Edwards, BBC Journalist 50th Anniversary Of The Aberfan Disaster, 2016.