Aberfan disaster 'a defining moment for Wales' » Communities » 24dash.com

The Aberfan disaster which killed 144 people 40 years ago this week, most of whom were children, was a defining moment in Welsh history, Wales's First Minister Rhodri Morgan said today.

The Welsh Assembly will hold a two-minute silence this afternoon to remember the 116 children and 28 adults who died when a coal tip collapsed on a school in Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.

The village will hold memorial events this week to mark 40 years since the tragedy with which it became synonymous.

Mr Morgan called on the people of Wales to remember those who died on October 21, 1966.

He compared the impact of their deaths to the impact the 9/11 terror attacks and the Kennedy assassination had on America.

The First Minister said: "Everyone can remember how they heard about Aberfan.

"I first heard about it on the lunchtime news that day and found it hard to make sense of the horror of it - the fact that a primary school had been buried, that so many children had died, and the scale of the rescue operation."

Pupils were just beginning lessons when a landslide of mud and coal debris rushed down a hill on to Pantglas Junior School.

The tip above the school, weakened by heavy rain, buried rooms and engulfed nearby houses.

As the rescue attempt began, people in the surrounding area went to the disaster site to dig through the mud in search of survivors.

"This was the 1960s. Wales still had 100,000 miners and coal was king," Mr Morgan said.

"The National Coal Board was the great power in the land. Coal was so important that we all accepted - until Aberfan - that there was a price to pay and we were all prepared to pay it.

"Coal tips and the turning of all those winding wheels were simply a sign that there were all these men at work out of sight and underground."

He added: "Americans think of the assassination of JF Kennedy and also of 9/11 - events which fundamentally changed America when a country lost its innocence.

"For Wales, our defining moment came 40 years ago."

He said that the disaster prompted Wales to take account of its environment and sparked a movement of environmental and economic renewal.

Despite a long litany of tragedies underground, Wales never foresaw that coal could take the lives of its children, he said.

"That was new, and terrible - 116 young lives lost, together with 28 adults.

"Aberfan defined post-War Wales, as would no other event. It awoke the sense that we had to be responsible for our own environment.

"No longer would Wales accept our degraded environment. What had once been acceptable to our communities had to be cleared.

"That achievement in turn made possible economic renewal, ready for the new age that would follow the demise of coal.

"But none of that could bring back the missing generation of Aberfan. Forty years on, we mourn their lost lives still."

Copyright Press Association 2006.