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Posted By Mark D'Rozario
Have you seen the recent programmes about the Aberfan disaster which took place almost 40 years ago? I'm sure our thoughts at this time are with all those touched by the disaster.
I have looked at the Aberfan website and I wondered whether anyone can tell me about the historical link between this disaster and the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974?
Mark
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Posted By David. Griffiths
Hi mark.....I visited Aberfan 2 days
after the disaster struck albeit in
the time I became involved in Health
and Safety...I was visiting Nelson
at the time which is just down the
Valley...What struck us was
how no one could have not seen the
inevitability of the event..The
TV pictures do not emphasise how
close and how steep the hillside
was in relation to the village..
Although I have no information as
to whether the disaster prompted
the HS at work Act 1774 I doubt it as it
was eight years before..There was
the inevitable attempt at cover up
from the Coal Board who took years
before they moved the tip
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Posted By David. Griffiths
Hi Mark again of course I meant 1974
not 1774
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Posted By Paul Devlin
Now this is from memory but the chap in charge/owned the mine was called I think if memory serves me right Lord Robben and he was tasked by the government after the accident to look at workers/workplace safety and hey presto years later they introduced the HASAWA 1974.
Seems a bit rich to ask the guy who was perhaps responsible for so many deaths to look at any ones health and safety.
I hope this helps and if I'm wrong then I stand corrected on any part of my reason.
Their might be some union reps out there that have better memory than I have.
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Posted By Salus
The spring was well known to all in the area, including the locals and coalboard yet was tipped upon until it was completely buried.
I believe that the people of Aberfan were forced to pay back, by the government some monies (£150.000)I think it was in 1989 for the clean up operation that was carried out after the disaster, absolutely disgraceful
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Posted By Mark D'Rozario
Thanks for the reply.
I understand that Lord Robens the then Chairman of the National Coal Board was charged at looking at health and safety nationally as a direct result of his 'involvement' and 'responses' at Aberfan.
Does anyone know any more?
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Posted By Steve Sanders
I think Lord Robens was chairman of the National Coal Board at the time of the disaster.
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Posted By jackw.
Hi, as far as i am aware the only link is Lord Robben as he was the head of the coal board at the time and was also the primary architect of the 1974 act. As an aside the coal board including Robbens have NEVER admitted liability for the disaster. A look at the enquiry clearly indicates that lord robbens main aim during it was:
1 to protect his own reputation
2.to protect the coal board
He was helped in that he was "well in" with the government of the day, who felt he was the only man at the time, who could whip the coal industry and the miners union into shape.. alas it wasn't a man that did that but a lady PM..
Cheers
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Posted By Paul Durkin
Hi Mark,
I missed the programme, I was out with my son who was born on 16th Oct 1987(great storm) After Aberfan tolerance to piles of coal waste on the Welsh hillsides lapsed.I was given a temporary job release to work at a similar Welsh valley school : Ynysddu ,which also had a similar mound in close proximity.
Regards,Paul
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Posted By Barry Cooper
I watched a program some weeks ago about Aberfan. The coal board knew about movement in the slag heaps, a structural engineers report to remove it was ignored, even the miners knew about the movement, but knew if they made a fuss, the mine would be closed
Question is did we learn from this disaster?
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Posted By sagalout I think we need to be a little cautious about applying 2006 standards to 1966. It was a very different world in 1966, England had a team who actually won the World Cup for example. I am not saying that what happened should be justified in any manner but just that when you look back you need to gain a sense of the contemporary society in which the various players in this tragedy lived before you can begin to understand why things may have turned out the way they did. If you want to start to read a little more you could start here http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk...litics/aberfan/ESRC.htmlSadly, Aberfan is just one of a recurring trail of disasters/tragedies that we would say could and should have been prevented. Piper Alpha, for example, killed 160 people, adults maybe so the outrage response is less but human lives just the same. As Lord Denning once famously said "organisations have no memory, it is people who have the memory"(or something like that anyway)
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Posted By sagalout
To single out Lord Robens as the person responsible is I think to over simplify the matter. To use that to suggest that he was a totally inappropriate person to chair the Inquiry that led to his world changing report in 1972 and subsequently to HASAW 1974 is to misinterpret his involvement with the NCB, his trade union background, the government of the day and his resulting massive contribution to H&S legislation.
I do not intend an academic reference but here a few random extracts from various journals to illustrate some details.
A KNOWN RISK 50 YEARS BEFORE ABERFAN
“In recent years the houses in the valleys and on the lower slopes are still further overshadowed by the huge coal-tips which are being piled on the breasts and upper slopes and which, besides making the landscape hideous, will in time endanger the very lives of those dwelling in the valleys below.”
The 1917 Commission of Enquiry into Industrial Unrest; No 7 Division Wales and Monmouthshire.
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
"We found that many witnesses, not excluding those who were intelligent and anxious to assist us, had been oblivious of what lay before their eyes. It did not enter their consciousness. They were like moles being asked about the habits of birds."
“the problem extended beyond sub-conscious fears about the future of the colliery into the very nature of the NCB of itself. As MTCBC's counsel argued, the NCB was a powerful and arrogant organisation that felt it had a monopoly over all wisdom”.
OBVIOUS GOVERNMENT KNOWLEDGE
Before the Tribunal of Inquiry began its hearings, rumours and allegations had begun to circulate regarding the causes of the disaster. The National Coal Board was the obvious target of many of the accusations but people looked to the Borough Council too. After all, the local authority had been receiving complaints about the tip and the flooding it was causing for years; if the Council had forced the issue with the NCB then the disaster could have been avoided.
THE ORGANSITIONAL CONTEXT
“conclude that the failure to hold anyone accountable for the Aberfan disaster derives from the corporatist assumptions that pervaded British politics at the time.”
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