Aberfan Disaster Tribunal

On October 21, 1966 a colliery tip slid onto the Welsh village of Aberfan, killing 144 people, 116 of them children. The tribunal appointed five days later was blunt: blame rested upon the National Coal Board. Its more lasting finding was that Britain had no law dealing with the safety of tips at all. Parliament answered with the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969, written to stop tips endangering the public, and spoil heaps came to be treated as engineering structures needing proper design and upkeep. It is the clearest early case of an inquiry exposing a gap in the law and the law being written to fill it.