From Esquire:
"Aberfan was a Welsh mining village founded in the late 1800s—one of many such villages that burgeoned near the Methyr Vale colliery, which began its operations in 1869. In the fall of 1966, Wales was deluged by weeks of heavy rain, which caused a nearby spoil tip (a mountainous pile of mining waste) to liquefy into a thick slurry. On October 21, 1966, the slurry hurtled into the village of Aberfan like a landslide of black quicksand, inundating buildings, streets, and most notably, the local schoolhouse."
"Aberfan was a Welsh mining village founded in the late 1800s—one of many such villages that burgeoned near the Methyr Vale colliery, which began its operations in 1869. In the fall of 1966, Wales was deluged by weeks of heavy rain, which caused a nearby spoil tip (a mountainous pile of mining waste) to liquefy into a thick slurry. On October 21, 1966, the slurry hurtled into the village of Aberfan like a landslide of black quicksand, inundating buildings, streets, and most notably, the local schoolhouse."