King Charles has met with the last survivor pulled from the Aberfan disaster, which killed 116 children and 28 adults, to mark the 60th anniversary of the tragedy today.
An entire generation was almost wiped out when 150,000 tons of coal waste slid down the hillside into the village before engulfing Pantglas Junior School on October 21, 1966.
The mud collapse came after three weeks of heavy rainfall, when excavated mining debris from the Merthyr Vale Colliery was dislodged and thundered down the hillside.
The waste material had been piled high on the side of Mynydd Merthyr – above Aberfan – for years, even though there were numerous underground springs below.
Children in Pantglas Junior School were just getting ready for lessons when 1.5 million cubic feet of liquefied slurry crashed into the school and a number of nearby houses.
About half the children from the junior school died in the tragedy, which happened on the last day before half term.
Coal bosses had been warned about ‘flowslides’ prior to the disaster and, despite a 76-day public inquiry finding fault lay with the National Coal Board, no one faced prosecution or even demotion.
Today the King, Queen Camilla and the Prince of Wales arrived at the close-knit former mining village to meet with survivors and bereaved families, including the school’s last surviving teacher – Mair Morgan.
Also among them was the last survivor to be pulled from the mountains of debris, Jeff Edwards OBE, who was just eight years old at the time; long remembered by late Queen Elizabeth II as ‘the little boy with blond hair’.
The Royal Family has shown ongoing support to Aberfan ‘over a long period’ since the tragedy struck 60 years ago, Mr Edwards revealed. The late Queen’s decision to attend eight days later, rather than immediately after the disaster, was said to be the biggest regret of her 70-year reign.
‘Those connections with the royal family go back for a very long way. And I know they will continue,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘It was Lord Snowdon who first came on the day of the disaster. He then reported back to Princess Margaret, who set up the toy fund for children. Then there was the subsequent visit of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
The King has visited Aberfan on different occasions over the years, he said, adding: ‘He’s come back now with the current Queen and with… the Prince of Wales.’
The Royal Family’s solid show of support comes today after Prince Harry said in an interview he is keen for reconciliation but that ‘some people don’t want it to work out’.
He told his interviewer ‘sibling disagreements’ and ‘broken relationships between kids and their parents’ were a ‘massively relatable’ topic that often came up when he spoke to people.
‘People look at us and go, ‘How are you going to work it out?” he said, adding: ‘Some people don’t want it to work out. I want it to work out.’
King Charles III (pictured with Jeff Edwards OBE) arrives at Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Community Centre
The King, Queen and Prince of Wales today joined survivors and bereaved families in remembering the 116 children and 28 adults killed in the Aberfan disaster on October 21, 1966
The Prince of Wales and Geraint Davies (left), advisor to the Aberfan Memorial Charity, during a wreath laying at Aberfan Memorial Garden
King Charles III and Queen Camilla with Mair Morgan, the last surviving teacher from Pantglas Junior School, paying their respects
The Prince of Wales at a commemoration event at Aberfan Memorial Garden
King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Prince of Wales arriving at Aberfan
On October 21, 1966, 144 people died after a coal tip collapsed on Pantglas Junior School and Moy Road in Aberfan
A child is carried by a policeman after being pulled from the wreckage following the coal tip collapse
![A national tribunal found the 'blame for the disaster rest[ed] upon the National Coal Board' due to a failure to manage piles of waste safely. No one was prosecuted following the tragedy](https://i.dailymail.com/1s/2026/10/21/11/111982119-16226279-A_national_tribunal_found_the_blame_for_the_disaster_rest_ed_upo-a-28_1792578474841.jpg)
A national tribunal found the ‘blame for the disaster rest[ed] upon the National Coal Board’ due to a failure to manage piles of waste safely. No one was prosecuted following the tragedy
The event haunted late Queen Elizabeth II, who waited eight days before visiting the coal mining village near Merthyr Tydfil – a move described as the biggest regret of her entire reign
Prince William bows his head after laying a wreath at Aberfan Memorial Garden on the 60th anniversary of the diasaster
Mair Morgan, the last surviving teacher of the Aberfan disaster, at the Pantglas Junior School Memorial Garden
‘I woke up with this material all over me,’ Mr Edwards said of the disaster. ‘The roof had come down. And I was buried with a desk against my stomach and a dead girl on my shoulder.
‘I was very lucky, and the reason why I survived was that I had a pocket of air around me and I was able to breathe.
‘When the fire service came into the classroom, they saw my blond hair and they began to dig the material away from me. Eventually, I was freed from the desk.’
Mr Edwards was the last child to be recovered from the rubble by firefighter Roy Thomas, as desperate villagers spent hours trying to find loved ones. After Jeff, no one else was found alive, and hopes quickly dwindled as the afternoon went on.
‘I had head and stomach injuries but those injuries would heal with time. It was a psychological injury, the trauma that will be with me until the end of my life.
‘Survivor’s guilt is a huge thing,’ he tearfully shared. ‘It’s hard because the distance between life and death is a matter of inches. So you wonder why you have survived, and others didn’t.
‘I think that’s been the driving force in making life better for people within the community.
Ahead of today’s royal visit, crowds amassed in the small village in South Wales to welcome them.
Charles, Camilla and William visited the Aberfan Memorial Garden, which is located on the site of the junior school, and the nearby Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Community Centre.
They joined survivors, bereaved parents and members of the community to pay tribute to all those who lost their lives.
A short prayer and a moment of silence were held, during which the King and the Prince of Wales laid wreaths, and the Queen placed a posy.
At the community centre, the royal party met with retired members of the emergency services who helped in the hours and days after the disaster. They also spent time with survivors, bereaved parents and siblings of those who died.
Later, Prince William visisted Ynysowen Community Primary School where he unveiled the Aberfan Memorial Tree, a new sculpture created to commemorate the anniversary.
During the visit, the prince met pupils and heard them recite poems they had written about the disaster and read memories recorded by the children who survived.
‘Well done guys,’ William told the pupils.
‘It shows the next generation does care about them, and it matters.’
Before unveiling the sculpture, William watched the pupils perform the Aberfan Song and well-known children’s favourite Everyone Belongs.
The memorial, designed and created by ArtMetal, features the names of those who died and a clock showing 9.13am – the minute thousands of tonnes of coal slurry engulfed the school.
The idea for the tree came from the school’s headteacher, Simone Roden, and Jeff Edwards, the last survivor to be rescued.
Mrs Roden said: ‘A tree is always a such a fitting symbol of life and growth. It started it from there.’
During the early planning stages, pupils were invited to share drawings and ideas for the memorial.
‘The doves represent the eight classrooms, and we have got the children’s names in silver, the teachers in gold, and residents in green,’ Mrs Roden said.
‘We talk about history, but for the children of Aberfan this is not about things they read in textbooks, they are living and breathing it,’ she said.
‘Our children are living history. We remember the Aberfan disaster every year, but this year is even more poignant.
‘This is my third royal visit as headteacher, and it is fantastic for the children to see that this memory is living on.’
Ynysowen Community Primary School was established following the tragedy to preserve the memory and spirit of the original school.
King Charles greets members of the public and a dog in Aberfan
King Charles laughs as he speaks with members of the public lining the streets outside Aberfan Memorial Garden
King Charles and Queen Camilla speak to members of the public in Aberfan as the village marks 60 years since the disaster which killed 144 people
The Prince of Wales meeting members of the St John Ambulance at Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Community Centre
Meanwhile Charles said it had been ‘profoundly humbling’ to hear the testimonies of survivors.
In an address to those gathered for the anniversary, he said: ‘We have heard stories of heartbreak but also of heroism.
‘We have heard of the most agonising grief but also of the most inspiring grace.’
He added: ‘Throughout all this, and through all the years, your unconquerable spirit has shone all the more brightly for the darkness which it has overcome.
‘No one should ever have to bear what you, as a community, have endured – but no one could have borne it with greater strength, resilience, or hope.
‘Please know how deeply we feel with your sorrow, how greatly we admire your strength, and how you will, always, be in our hearts.’
Queen Elizabeth II visited eight days after the tragedy and shortly after a mass funeral had taken place, a move that was said to be the greatest regret of her 70-year-long reign.
The Queen’s former secretary, Lord Charteris, previously revealed he felt he had given the monarch poor advice to ‘stay away [from Aberfan] until the preliminary shock had worn off’.
However, when she arrived in the mining village in its darkest hour, she was met with respect and adoration by locals as she became ‘really upset’ and ‘had to compose herself’ before meeting those who had lost loved ones.
‘If she’d come on the day, it would have impeded the rescue process because any royal visit does have an entourage with it. I think she came at the right time,’ Jeff said.
‘She was really upset. She started to get tears in her eyes when Councillor Jim Williams’s granddaughter presented her the posy, which was inscribed from the surviving children.’
Throughout her reign, she visited several times and later gave a personal donation to the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Youth and Community project, which later received the Golden Jubilee Award.
The initiative, of which the late Queen was ‘very supportive’, was co-founded by Jeff to support locals after he saw a rise in drug and alcohol use in the area in the decades that followed the disaster.
‘Lots of young people who traditionally went into the mining industry were unemployed because of the colliery closures, were stealing cars and were buying alcohol and drugs to alleviate the hopelessness of both of their lives,’ he explained.
In 1997, she also insisted on altering her schedule to go to the village while on an official visit to Merthyr Tydfil. She made her final visit to Aberfan in 2012 when she opened Ynysowen Community Primary School.
King Charles speaks with Gloria Davies from the Aberfan Wives Group at Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Community Centre
William, Prince of Wales, shakes hands with a member of the public in Aberfan
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, alongside the Secretary of State for Wales, Stephen Kinnock, met Jeff Edwards OBE, the last person to be pulled alive from the wreckage, on Monday
The disaster struck at 9.13am on October 21, 1966 – this clock was recovered from the wreckage
Archived images of the Aberfan disaster were released last week by the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service ahead of the 60th anniversary
The images show droves of locals desperately looking for survivors among mountains of slurry and debris. Clouds of steam billow from the coal waste that decimated Moy Road
Search operations continued around the clock until all hope of finding more survivors faded
Members of the public gather at Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Community Centre ahead of commemoration events
They gathered ahead of the visit by the King, Queen and Prince of Wales
Charles, who was then the Prince of Wales, visited Aberfan in 2016 and privately laid a wreath bearing the words ‘Er bythol gof a chyda’r cydymdeimlad dwysaf’, meaning ‘In continuing memory and deepest sympathy’.
He planted a sweetgum tree in the Aberfan Memorial Garden and spoke to survivors at a reception before delivering a speech that included a message from the late Queen.
William previously met survivors of the Aberfan disaster when he visited with the Princess of Wales in 2023.
On the day of the tragedy, it was observed at 7.30am that a coal tip had sunk by around 10ft. Coal bosses were told at 9am, as a worker had to walk to them because there were no phone lines on the mountain. By this time the tip had sunk another 10ft.
Just 15 minutes later, coal tip 7 collapsed, sending 150,000 tons of slurry barrelling into 240 schoolchildren at Pantglas Junior School, their teachers and 19 homes on Moy Road.
Local residents were left with no choice but to take £150,000 from a memorial fund to pay for the clean-up bill. This was eventually returned after decades of campaigning.
First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth, who attended the remembrance event, described Aberfan as ‘one of the darkest days in our nation’s history’.
‘The events of 21st October 1966 devastated the community of Aberfan. It robbed a generation of its children of their futures in a matter of moments,’ he said ahead of the anniversary.
‘Hearing stories of that day is an early memory that left a deep and lasting effect on me.
‘It brought home to me the horror of that day for all those who were there, and who lived to bear witness to what happened.
‘The story of Aberfan will never be forgotten. It is a story of the most terrible loss and grief. But also a story of the resilience of a community over six decades.’
Ahead of the milestone, Stephen Kinnock, Secretary of State for Wales, said: ‘The community of Aberfan suffered a loss so profound that it remains etched into the memory of our nation.
‘Today, we remember each and every one of them.
‘Aberfan is a community that has shown extraordinary strength, resilience and dignity in the face of such devastating tragedy, coming together time and again to ensure that all who were lost there are never forgotten.’
Archbishop of Wales Cherry Vann said: ‘Today, as we commemorate that heartbreaking day, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of a community which has shown, in the face of unbearable suffering, the most inspiring resilience and strength.
‘We offer our prayers for all across Wales and beyond who are touched by today’s commemorations.’
Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited Aberfan on Monday, where he spoke with survivors and bereaved families and laid a wreath in memory of those who died.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions today, Mr Burnham said: ‘Today also marks the 60th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster. I am sure the thoughts of the whole House will be with the community today, and with the people of Wales.
‘I visited on Monday and heard how the injustices people suffered at the time and in the aftermath of the tragedy at the hands of the state still hurt.
‘This is a day to recognise that, say sorry for it, but celebrate the strength and spirit of a community that has stood together through adversity all of these years.’
Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the disaster, a shocking report revealed that around one in ten families in Wales are still living near ‘high risk’ coal tips that are becoming increasingly unsafe due to the impacts of climate change.
There are 2,589 disused coal tips scattered throughout Wales, hundreds of which have been labelled Category C and D, requiring more frequent monitoring because they pose a higher risk.
In January 2025, an FOI request by BBC Wales found 13 coal tips had been upgraded to a higher risk category since November 2022, with 11 of those upgraded to the most serious categories – C and D.
Fresh concerns arose in November 2024, after Storm Bert sparked a ‘washout of a former coal tip’ in Cwmtillery, Blaenau Gwent, forcing residents to leave their homes and stay in a leisure centre overnight.
That same year, the UK Government pledged £25million to Welsh coal tip safety for 2025-26 as well as further funding of £39.3million a year until 2029.
A new report has revealed that more than 130,000 households in Wales are close to coal tips, which pose a risk to public safety amid fears of the consequences of extreme weather such as heavy rain in the area.