Mining waste from the Merthyr Vale colliery had been dumped in the tips above the settlement for more than 50 years, but after a night of particularly heavy rain the land gave way. Tonnes of ...

Inland, towns like Merthyr Tydfil (population 7,700 in 1801; 50,000 just six decades later), Ebbw Vale, Tredegar ... were killed at the Albion colliery. Less than twenty years later, and just ...