The Aberfan Effect
The Welsh village of Aberfan suffered one of the worst mining
disasters when a huge slag heap at the edge of town collapsed and
covered the local school killing 144 people, mostly children.
The pressures for enhanced profits caused short cuts to be taken
disregarding environmental conditions. Warning signs of
instability of the slag heaps were ignored. The surroundings were
dotted with these mountains which was not only unsafe but
unsightly.
Surprisingly after the disaster the local populace figured out a
way to remove these eyesores, proving that this could have been
done earlier and preventing the tragedy.
For all those years the populace lived with ugly mounds, when
they could have been replaced by a pleasant surrounding.
You can read a fuller account here.
Moral: Don't
foul your own nest.
I call the failure to learn this lesson the Aberfan Effect.
Don't the business and political leaders have to live in
this world too?
Do they want their children raised in dangerous, polluted
conditions?
What does the extra profit do them if they can't enjoy their
surroundings?
Are they immune to environmental poisons like Arsenic in the
drinking water
and Mercury emissions from coal power plants?
Have we learned from this? Apparently not, here's a small list
of ongoing disasters:
The Berkeley Pit Copper Mine, Butte MT
Hudson River PCB Contamination
Hanford Nuclear Weapons Site
Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant
Mercury Emissions from Coal Power Plants
If you have a disaster or comments you would like to add email me
at robert.feinman@gmail.com
Click here to see all my essays in context.
Copyright © 2004-6 Robert D Feinman
Feel free to use the ideas, but the words are mine.