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AberfanAberfan (in Welsh the 'f' is pronounced like an 'v' in standard English) is a small village 5 miles south of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. On the 21st October 1966, at 9.15am, colliery waste tip number 7 slid down Merthyr Mountain destroying two cottages and went on to demolish virtually all of Pantglas Junior School and part of the separate adjacent senior school. In total 144 people were killed, 116 of whom were children mostly between the ages of 7 and 10. Lord Robens of Woldingham, chairman of the National Coal Board, did not rush to the scene; he went instead to accept an appointment as chancellor of the University of Surrey. Subsequently he misrepresented the cause of the slide to the community and falsely claimed that nothing could have been done to prevent it. A tribunal of inquiry found that the National Coal Board was to blame for the disaster, and was ordered to pay compensation to the families: 500 per child. In a controversial move this payment was reduced by the amount that a publicly subscribed disaster fund paid to families. Similarly after lengthy appeals part of the fund was used to make the remainder of the waste tip safe and the Coal Board avoided the costs of completly doing the job from their own resources but where later made to pay back this money into the fund. The tip had been sighted on a known stream, which was shown on earlier ordanance survey maps, in 1958 and had suffered minor slips several times before. Its instability was known both to colliery management and tip workers but very little was done about it. The Merthyr Tydfil Borough Council and National Union of Mineworkers were cleared of any wrongdoing. Merthyr Vale Colliery was closed in 1989. External links See also
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