Silence and tears in memory of victims of the Aberfan disaster
Villagers remember 50 years after school disaster
SURVIVORS OF the Aberfan disaster, which killed 116 children and 28 adults, wept as they observed a minute’s silence on the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.
About 1,000 people attended a memorial service in the Welsh village’s cemetery – the final resting place of those who perished that fateful day on October 21 1966.
Those rescued from the debris of Pantglas Junior School laid floral wreaths yesterday in tribute to their tragic classmates as the tight-knit community turned out in force to pay their respects.
The emotional service, attended by Wales’s First Minister Carwyn Jones, came ahead of an official visit by the Prince of Wales.
A minute’s silence was also held across the country, with shopping centres, schools, hospitals and law courts coming to a standstill at 9.15am – the time disaster struck.
The disaster unfolded, following days of heavy rain, when excavated mining debris from the Merthyr Vale Colliery became dislodged and came thundering down the hillside on a foggy October morning.
Youngsters in Pantglas Junior School below were just getting ready for lessons when 1,500,000 cubic feet of liquefied slurry crashed into the school and a number of nearby houses with a tsunami-like force.
Several survivors and the relatives of those who died have since said their lives were changed forever by the disaster.
Fifty years to the day of the disaster, they climbed, some arm in arm, up the steep hill to Aberfan cemetery to attend a memorial service officiated at by Father Mark Prevett.
As the sun shone directly on to the bright white gravestones of the victims, the community stood shoulder to shoulder in the cold in an emotional and resilient display of remembrance.
Among those attending was Jeff Edwards, who was the last person to be pulled out of the wreckage alive. Mr Edwards, who was eight at the time, had just picked a new library book and walked back to his desk when he heard a rumbling sound.
He described hearing a sound like thunder, before waking up and hearing the sound of shouts and screams.
Also attending were brothers Phil and Alan Thomas, who featured in the recent BBC documentary Surviving Aberfan.
Several local dignitaries also paid their respects, as did Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns, officials from the emergency services and the town’s youth mayor Sacha-Neave Thomas.
One of the first journalists on the scene of the Aberfan disaster said witnessing the aftermath changed his life and is something he has never forgotten.
Bob Trevor was working as the rugby correspondent on the London Evening News when he was dispatched to the village – where he was born in South Wales – almost 50 years ago.
“The slurry had come all the way down the mountainside over the west side of the road where the school was and was stopped by high stone walls,” he said. “The next day was even worse because the people of Aberfan were out and about.
“Standing on corners crying. Talking about what had happened and the children they had lost.
“It was a stunning situation that I have never really got over all these years.”
Spending six days at the scene, he said he thinks about what happened “a lot”, revealing there was a time where he would have nightmares about what he saw.
It was a stunning situation that I have never really got over. Former journalist Bob Trevor