the mountainsides above the village, colliery waste had been dumped over the years to form large spoil tips. Shortly after 9:00 am, on Friday 21 October 1966, one of these tips collapsed, sending thousands of tons of semi-liquid waste hurtling towards Aberfan. The point of impact was Pantglas Junior School, where morning lessons were beginning. The school was half buried; inside, 109 children and 5 teachers were killed. A further 7 children and 23 adults lost their lives outside the school, in the streets or adjoining houses. In the immediate aftermath, Davies visited and consoled the bereaved families in Aberfan, and the following day he led a party which included the Duke of Edinburgh on a tour of the disaster site. On 24 October, the National Coal Board chairman Lord Robens stated that the cause of the landslip was a previously unknown spring, which had been pouring water into the centre of the tip, creating a "water bomb". Local miners disagreed; they said that the spring's existence had been known when tipping began 20 years earlier. A tribunal was set up under Lord Justice Edmund Davies, to investigate the disaster. Giving evidence to the tribunal, S. O. Davies said he had long suspected that the Aberfan tips were unstable, but had kept quiet for fear that if tipping was stopped on the mountainside the Coal Board would close the colliery. Davies added: "But if I had been asked to do so, I would have done it". His testimony was strongly challenged by the NUM, whose counsel Brian Gibbens QC said that "[i]f Mr Davies is to be accepted as truthful and accurate in his recollection ... then he bears what must be one of the largest personal burdens of responsibility for the disaster". However, Gibbens found it incredible that a man in Davies's unique local position of authority and influence would not have mentioned his fears to any of the formal bodies—borough council, Coal Board, union or local Labour Party: "If anyone could have exercised influence to overcome an obdurate or ignorant monolith like the Coal Board, [Davies] was well placed to do so." Gibbens submitted that Davies's testimony should be rejected, on the grounds that he "never appreciated what in fact was the import of his words". The tribunal concurred, accepting that Davies had not fully understood the gravity of his admission, and adding that had they been convinced