On the morning of October 21, 1966, a landslide of coal waste
crashed into a small Welsh mining village, killing 116 children
and 28 adults. The accident left just five survivors and wiped
out half the town’s youth. The Aberfan disaster became one
of the UK’s worst coal mining accidents.

The landslide sent 140,000 cubic yards of coal waste in a tidal
wave 40-feet high hurtling down the mountainside where Merthyr
Vale Colliery stood, destroying farmhouses, cottages, houses
and part of the neighboring County Secondary School.

The avalanche is thought to have been the result of shoddy
construction and a build-up of water in one of the colliery’s
spoil tips—piles of waste material removed during mining.

On the morning of Friday, October 12, 1962—Columbus Day—a
massive storm hit the coast of northern California. The storm had originated several days earlier in the Pacific Ocean, about five
hundred miles north of Wake Island. 

Re-energized by a combination of unusual meteorological
conditions, the storm moved north with the gathering force
of a Category 3 hurricane. Originally named Typhoon Freda by meteorologists and called the Big Blow by many, it may have
been the most powerful extratropical cyclone ever to hit the
western United States.

Oregon experienced the full brunt of the typhoon and suffered
more damage than any other state. In addition to substantial
damage to thousands of buildings— residential, commercial,
and civic—and to miles of power lines, the severe winds
toppled countless trees in western Oregon’s forests.

The storm outranks all other natural disasters in the state in
terms of destruction and cost, including the 1903 Heppner
Flood. 

The intense winds left over a million people in Oregon without
electrical power, some of them for weeks.

     
CAMILLE
BOHANNON

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept
through the central parts of London from Sunday, 2 September
to Thursday, 6 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval
City of London inside the old Roman city wall. The death toll is
generally thought to have been relatively small, although some
historians have challenged this belief.

The fire started in a bakery shortly after midnight on Sunday, 2 September, and spread rapidly.

      
ROSS SIMPSON

ED DANAHUE