Aberfan disaster

I mean, it was interesting.

I thought it was interesting when Aberfan came up.

Yeah.

Because when you look at Aberfan, I remember, you know, those shocking scenes and I remember the aftermath and the consensus was that this was an accident waiting to happen.

People had, you know, sounded alarm bells and they'd been ignored and then the accident had happened.

That's pretty much the shape of every disaster that we've had.

And I just thought it was interesting that we're still trapped in that cycle.

So that's because

Yeah.

So it, it was, uh, a gentleman called Dr. John Barker who was intrigued by the number of survivors at Aberfan, a horrendous-

Right

... disaster whose, uh, anniversary is in the next couple of days.

You should worry.

[laughs] Yeah.

But it was Aberfan that started all that here in the UK, which is obviously the, some of the stories and, and some of the things that the children had said before it happened is, is, is terrifying when you listen to that.

Oh, yeah.

Um, and so we had Bishop James Jones, um, talk to, um, a pa- the panel.

The panel composed of people who lost loved ones in Grenfell, people who'd been survivors in Grenfell, people who lost pe- you know, loved ones in, in Hillsborough, in Aberfan, you know, in Manchester Arena.

Now, what I wanted from that session, and I didn't really know if I'm being absolutely honest with myself, how that would land globally.

Mm.

[suspenseful music] Let me take you to a tiny mining village in South Wales in England.

It's called Aberfan, and since the 19th century, coal has reigned supreme there.

Generations of people had worked those mines.

It was hard work, but the mines offered decent pay and stability, but they also set the stage for an unthinkable tragedy.

See, the waste from the mines, unusable coal, rocks, and debris, it all had to go somewhere.

You'd think and hope that all that rubble would be disposed of far, far away from the village.

Instead, they were left on the hills above Aberfan in what are called spoil heaps, or in mining terms, tips.

These weren't just little trash piles either.

What's even stranger, Kathleen's precognition and Errol May's dream didn't stand alone.

Over 70 others claimed they experienced premonitions just before the Aberfan disaster.

[gentle music] Welcome back to another episode of Do Gee See God.

I'm your host, Austin Li, and here we have, as always, my dog, Jerry.

Yeah.

Um, but anyway, back to premonitions as, uh, this whole episode is going to be about.

Um, people actually had such strong reactions to this Aberfan disaster that an entire bureau was formed to study premonitions in the 1960s.

So we'll be diving into some of the predictions made during the time of this bureau and also how and if premonitions are legitimate by any means.

Let me take you to a tiny mining village in South Wales in England.

It's called Aberfan.

And since the 19th century, coal has reigned supreme there.

Generations of people had worked those mines.

See, the waste from the mines, unusable coal, rocks, and debris, it all had to go somewhere.

You'd think and hope that all that rubble would be disposed of far, far away from the village.

Instead, they were left on the hills above Aberfan in what are called spoil heaps, or in mining terms, tips.

These weren't just little trash piles, either.

And then one thing that happened in the ground was that there was a minute silence for the Grestford colliery disaster, which for those who don't know, I'd never heard of this one to be honest.

I'd heard about Aberfan in 1966, which is in a different part of Wales.

But this is about 250 people in a disaster in the colliery.

And it's not far from Wrexham.