BBC Documentaries

Surviving Aberfan (2016x303)

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It’s the black-and-white photos that punch hardest at the heart. The gappy smiles, the shy freckled faces, the wonky ties, the hair ribbons of children all frozen in time, a generation gone, wiped out 50 years ago by the colliery spoil that engulfed a junior school in a south Wales valley. This admirable Testimony Films documentary talks to survivors and rescuers of the Aberfan disaster that killed 116 children and 28 adults. “My childhood ended that day,” says a man who was pulled from the filthy horror after two hours. He’s suffered depression and terrible nightmares ever since. But Aberfan, we learn, has healed itself, thanks to a community that pulled together while acknowledging its deep wounds. Summary Fifty years ago, on October 21, 1966, 116 children and 28 adults lost their lives after an avalanche of coal waste crashed into a school and the houses nearby in the South Wales mining village of Aberfan. This documentary tells the story of the worst disaster involving children in modern British history.