VILLAGERS from Aberfan gathered at a hillside cemetery yesterday to mark the 30th anniversary of the disaster which killed 144 people.
Parents and relatives of the 116 children who died when a coal tip collapsed on the Welsh village's school laid flowers on the rows of arched graves.
The mayor of Merthyr Tydfil, Mr William Smith, laid a wreath at a 9.15 a.m. memorial service - the exact time the coal tip slid down the hillside to engulf the school.
Villagers at Aberfan later lit 144 candles in memory of each of the victims.
Both services were held in virtual silence. It has become the tradition that no words can express the community's grief over the last three decades.
The anniversary was made all the more poignant for the South Wales pit village after the Dunblane massacre in which 16 children were killed. Both communities have sent messages of support to each other over recent months.
On one day alone in 1966, the Rev Kenneth Hayes conducted 14 funerals, and his son Dyfrig (9) was among the dead. Mr Hayes, now 66, recalled the tragedy yesterday: "I remember somebody shouting to me that something had happened. I went up the road and turned the bend. I could see nothing but a mountain of black waste."
Mr Hayes was one of the first on the scene trying to get children out of the black sludge, knowing his son was trapped.
He said: "I could see it was hopeless. It was best left to the miners so I went around visiting parents in the village whose children were also inside."
It was not until the following morning that Mr Hayes and his wife Mona were told their son was among the dead.