
Aberfan: The mistake that cost a village its children - Patient0
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-150d11df-c541-44a9-9332-560a19828c47
======
xamuel
I read the wikipedia article rather than the linked BBC article.

What struck me was the boneheaded greed of the National Coal Board. Pettily
resisting things like 'move the giant pile which killed all the kids, away
from the village' because it would cost so much. When the costs are not all
that much on government scale, even adjusting for inflation. They initially
wanted to compensate the families with £50 (!!) per dead kid. Eventually they
raised that to £500 and called it "generous". None of the jokers in question
suffered any real consequences for it.

Really shines a dim light on the UK government around that time.

~~~
chimprich
Using an online inflation calculator, £50 in 1966 is equivalent to £873 today.
£500 is £8,731. Wow. Still startling.

I thought the next sentence was even more shocking: "A more substantial sum,
it was advised, would have destroyed the working class recipients not used to
large amounts of money."

~~~
nzp
That was a common meme about the poor repeated by the rich. It still lives,
sometimes in a more sophisticated form, eg. poor people don't know how to
manage spending, not buying in bulk, not taking advantage of discounts, etc.,
when in reality, in practice, most things cost more when you are poor because
you can't afford to wait for good opportunities, and people are actually doing
the best they can it their circumstances.

~~~
sargun
Also, if anything, I find that people who are lower-middle class tend to be
better with their money than many of the "elite" \-- not better as in taking
advantage of unattainable economic tools, but perhaps more conservative with
purchases, and such.

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jhbadger
We read about similar disasters happening today in third world countries and
we think "It's all due to the corruption in those places; such things could
never happen in developed places". It is really thought-provoking to think
about how not very long ago they did.

~~~
smacktoward
Indeed, and by pushing the production of goods far away from the people who
consume them, modern industrial capitalism makes it easier for the consumer to
ignore things like this when they do happen. After all, they're happening to
foreign people far away, not to people next door, people Like Us™.

You can see that logic in action in this infamous 2013 essay by neoliberal
pundit Matt Yglesias, arguing that "Different Places Have Different Safety
Rules and That's OK":
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/24/international...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/24/international_factory_safety.html)

~~~
wyager
Exporting production to less developed countries inarguably raises the
standard of living in those countries. There is a cost in the form of
increased risk from some sources; manufacturing accidents, pollution, etc.
However, this is more than offset by the increase in food production,
lifespan, medical care, and everything else that comes with being a production
economy.

The fact that you can sit there on your computer and say "oh, those poor
foreigners would be so much better off if they just let me decide for them so
I could keep them in a third-world subsistence farming economy" just indicates
that you are from a culture that's forgotten what it takes to modernize and
improve. You can't build an industrial base off nostalgic dreams of
agrarianism.

~~~
smacktoward
_> The fact that you can sit there on your computer and say "oh, those poor
foreigners would be so much better off if they just let me decide for them so
I could keep them in a third-world subsistence farming economy"_

Where did I say that, exactly? I welcome the opening up of economic
opportunities to these populations. I just think that they deserve the same
protections and pay for doing those jobs that Westerners would receive if they
were the ones doing them, rather than just being pawns in a global system of
labor arbitrage.

It's a bit rich to get up on a moral high horse and then declare from that
elevated position that the life of a Bangladeshi worker is worth less than
that of an American one. Companies aren't setting up in these countries
because they are benevolent actors looking to help them develop their
economies. They're setting up there because they can exploit the workers there
in ways that they can't get away with doing back home anymore.

Workers in developed economies had to endure a century of bloody struggle to
claw those protections into place; I would rather we construct an economy that
allows this new class of workers to get them for themselves without having to
suffer through that.

~~~
ceras
Nobody is claiming their lives are worth less: it's clear OP does not feel
that way, and it's mean to imply otherwise. But very sadly their labor is
currently worth a lot less, and regulations that try to force a change (like
any other economic price floor) in that will severely reduce demand for their
labor and limit their economic opportunities.

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Theizestooke
I hat those layouts. Just give me a static page, maybe chop the article into
separate bits and hyperlink them. But this... it's like it was made by tv
people who hate reading. I don't know.

~~~
frou_dh
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739)

~~~
mcbits
When one paints the bike shed hot pink with pea-green accents and puts the
bike rack itself on the roof, some discussion of it is to be expected.

------
arethuza
I was almost exactly 1 year old when the Aberfan disaster occurred so I have
no direct memories.

But what I do remember from the subsequent few years was the look of absolute
horror and fear that came over my mothers face any time it was mentioned.

------
brodie78382
"To reach an appropriate sum the Charity Commission proposed asking grief-
stricken parents ‘exactly how close were you to your child?’; those found not
to have been close to their children would not be compensated."

I have no words for this...

Edit: My god, it just gets worse:

"Mercifully, the proposal was never acted upon. The NCB initially offered £50
before raising it to the "generous offer" of £500. A more substantial sum, it
was advised, would have destroyed the working class recipients not used to
large amounts of money"

------
OliverJones
The tech developed by [https://shorthand.com/](https://shorthand.com/) has a
small credit at the foot of this story.

This kind of journalistic work makes worthwhile all the labors of internet
people. Browsers, Javascript, routers, servers, security, even JPEG, come
together here to retell the story of that disaster, along with good writing
and photography. Let's hope the right people see this history and learn from
it

~~~
KON_Air
Surely there is a value in pretty presentations and from a technical point it
is quite impressive.

Still I just couldn't stop myself from changing white to gold-ish (#c1af57)
and found it much better then white text hovering over black and white photos
with a darkened layer between them.

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colanderman
Is it just me or do the survivor counts make no sense in this article?

> 240 pupils of the Victorian red brick Pantglas Junior School

> The 10th and last child to be brought out alive, he was treated for head and
> stomach injuries.

> A further 28 children were injured, many seriously.

> There are thought to be about 20 or so of the surviving children left in
> Aberfan.

> They had registered the deaths of 116 children

So… only 10 were pulled out alive, but 20+ survived? 28 were injured, but not
dead, but not pulled out alive? 124 weren't registered as dead?

~~~
GavinMcG
There were 240 pupils, 116 of whom were killed. 28 were injured, 10 of whom
had been trapped and needed to be brought out. So 96 of the pupils were not
physically affected.

Only 20 of the (then-) children still live in Aberfan.

~~~
Someone
Small correction: "A _further_ 28 children were injured".

I read that as 38 were injured, 10 of whom were trapped, leaving 86 who
weren't physically injured.

------
CarolineW
This from the article:

    
    
        “As if nature had realised that a
         tremendous mistake had been made
         and nature was speechless.”

