Aberfan - The Disaster (Continued)
21st October, 1966

Mr. David Jones made his report to Mr. Leslie Davies and he in his turn made a report to Vivian Thomas. Leslie Davies did just that and told Mr. Thomas of the ten foot hole. Mr. Thomas then sent men with an oxy-acetylene burner to cut the overhanging rails and gave directions for the crane to be pulled as far back as possible from the point of the tip and instructions were issued to stop tipping on No.7. Mr. Thomas said at the time that he would go up the tip complex with a view to finding a suitable place to start tipping. Leslie Davies and David Jones along with two men with cutting apparatus arrived at the top of the tip about 9 a.m. They found that the point of the tip had sunk another 10 feet so that at that time it was 20 feet below it's normal level.

The instructions to move the crane back were given but the men decided to have a cup of tea before doing this. It was very fortunate that they did this and retired to their cabin. Had they started work they would probably have gone down with the slide. Mr. Brown the crane driver stayed behind and while the rest were in the cabin, he gave the following account of what he saw.

"I was standing on the edge of the depression. I was looking down into it, and what I saw I couldn't believe my eyes. It was starting to come back up. It started to rise slowly at first. I still did not believe it; I thought I was seeing things. Then it rose up pretty fast, at a tremendous speed. Then it sort of came up out of the depression and turned itself into a wave. That is the only way I can describe it, down towards the mountain, towards Aberfan village, into the mist."

Burning Tip

Mr. Brown's shout brought the rest of the tipping gang out of the cabin, and the story was taken up by Leslie Davies who said:-
"When he shouted, we all got to the top of the tip and all I can tell you is that it was going down at a hell of a speed in waves. I myself ran down the side of the No.3 tip all the way down towards No.2 and No.1 tip on the side. As I was running down, I heard another roar behind me and trees cracking and a tram passing me. I stopped, I fell down in fact. All I could see was waves of muck, slush and water. I still kept running. I kept going down shouting. I couldn't see; nobody could. And I heard a voice answer me and he shouted, "Come out of there, for God's sake". That man was Trevor Steed. I went with Trevor Steed down to the old railway line. By that time my mates had come down behind me. We went along the line as far as we could towards the school which we could see. All the houses were down. We could not pass that way because there was too much water running down. We could not go the way we wanted to go."

Great efforts were speedily put into effect to attack the slimy mass that had engulfed the village. Essential services were quickly brought to the village and people came from far and wide to lend a hand and from the local colliery, officials hurried and strong experienced colliers arrived to use their strength and skill as never before. Despite the efforts, after 11 a.m on that day no one was rescued alive.

Aftermath

In the disaster one hundred and forty four men, women and children lost their lives. One hundred and sixteen of the victims were children, most of them between the ages of 7 to 10. One hundred and nine of them died in the Junior School. Of the twenty eight adults who died five were teachers in that school. In addition twenty nine children and six adults were injured some of them seriously. Sixteen houses were damaged by the sludge and sixty houses had to be evacuated and others were unavoidably damaged during the rescue operations.

Life can never be the same again for the men and women, and the teenagers, who were the heroes of Aberfan.

They will never forget - and the world will always remember - the unending hours of their heart breaking battle to rescue the victims of disaster valley.

From the piles of pictures which amassed in newspaper offices all over the world, "The People" has selected these to typify the courage and the self-sacrifice by so many.

I Had Just Turned 15
We Walked Over The Mountain From The Cynon Valley.

When we arrived at the site we were asked to fill bags with spoil and take them to the stream that ran down the northern edge of the site as a result of the mud slide. This photograph was taken looking down the valley with the roof of the school in the background. The reason for the bags was to stop the stream breaking it's man made banks and flowing down into the school area.

By using the youngsters it would allow the skilled miners to go down and help with the (now) recovery of the bodies of the victims of the slide. Later on some of us were given yellow leggings and wellington boots to go into the stream to remove large lumps of slag to keep the stream flowing freely. I don't know how long I worked there but my abiding memory is a whistle being blown and the whole site falling silent as the miners and other rescue workers pulled the body of a victim from the slurry. Another memory is of women of the Salvation army who climbed up the slope to bring us soup and sandwiches throughout the day.

In the end I was too knackered to climb back over the mountain and used the tip's tramway to cross to Merthyr Vale and hopefully hitch hike home. A police officer took sympathy on me and stopped a car and asked the driver to take me as far as possible. I remember the car was a Humber and the driver spread pages of a broadsheet newspaper over the back seats as my clothes were filthy. The driver and I never exchanged a word except for me to thank him as he dropped me off at Abercynon. At Abercynon I was picked up by a van load of miners from Penrikyber Colliery who recognised me.

Ten years later I joined the Fire Brigade as a professional firefighter and worked with several 'old hands' that had attended at Aberfan in the minutes and hours following the disaster.

Gerwyn Gibbs