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Video length: 4 min
Wales: living under the threat of ancient slag heaps
In Wales, 350 slag heaps are at risk of collapse. The threat is intensifying with global warming and reawakens the trauma of the Aberfan tragedy and its 144 deaths in 1966.
(France 2)
In Wales, 350 slag heaps are at risk of collapse. The threat is intensifying with global warming and reawakens the trauma of the Aberfan tragedy and its 144 deaths in 1966.
The collapse of a slag heap in Wales has revealed a very present threat, which risks increasing with global warming. Luckily, no houses were in the path of the flow, and there were no victims. Of more than 2,500 slag heaps in the country, a legacy of an important mining past, 350 represent a serious risk of collapse, weakened by rain and water infiltration. They will now have to be monitored twice a year.
A deadly landslide
But in the region, the collapse of the slag heap awakened trauma. More than 50 years ago, on October 21, 1966, the mining town of Aberfan, Wales, suffered a massive landslide. Part of the 35 meter high slag heap located nearby buried homes as well as schools. 144 people lost their lives, including many children.
