Never forget or forgive

[Guest guest]

Aberfan mourns dead 40 years on Reflecting on a lost generation Official commemorations of the 40th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster are beginning, to remember the 144 people who died in the south Wales town. A total of 116 children lost their lives when a coal waste tip slid down a mountain, engulfing a school and surrounding houses on 21 October 1966. First Minister Rhodri Morgan will be among those attending a public church service in nearby Merthyr Tydfil later. A private service will be held in Aberfan cemetery on Saturday. Representatives from Aberfan's memorial committee, parents who lost their children and some survivors will also be among those attending the public memorial at St Mary's Church, Merthyr Tydfil, on Thursday evening. Mr Morgan has called on the people of Wales to remember those who died. It doesn't matter if it's one year or 40 years on - the pain is just the same Cliff Minett, father He 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. "This was the 1960s. Wales still had 100,000 miners and coal was king. 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. "What we never foresaw was that coal could take the lives of our children. That was new, and terrible." Removal costs The slip happened just after pupils had arrived for classes at Pantglas Junior School on the last day before half-term that year. The school and about two dozen houses were covered by the slide, which followed several days of heavy rain. Images of the tragedy were beamed around the world, prompting donations for a disaster fund which reached a total of £1.75m. A tribunal found the National Coal Board was responsible for the disaster, but nobody was sacked or prosecuted. Survivor Susan Robertson is pulled from the rubble Villagers campaigned vigorously for the tip to be removed, spurred on by findings from the tribunal of inquiry which said an underground stream beneath the tip had probably contributed to the tip moving. The government eventually agreed, but the National Coal Board and the Treasury forced the villagers to contribute £150,000 from the disaster fund towards the removal costs. The money was eventually repaid 30 years later at the instigation of the then Welsh Secretary Ron Davies, but without any interest payments. Cliff Minett, who lost two of his three children in the disaster, said: "It doesn't matter if it's one year or 40 years on - the pain is just the same." Peter H

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.