Poignant words on Aberfan by John Humphrys

I can remember seeing the news of the Aberfan disaster. I was only seven at the time, but I remember watching the pictures on the TV.

Today is the 40th aninversary of the disaster. John Humphrys was a young television reporter sent to cover the tragedy. He knew the area very well, so that added an extra poignancy to his experience. On the BBC website he remembers the events and says:

I have been a journalist for getting on for half a century now. I have reported wars and disasters all over the world, many of them involving many, many, many more deaths.
But there has never been anything to compare with Aberfan...

...although the first hours of that first day were indescribable, what was even worse in one peculiar way was watching them taking the coffins out of the chapel - small coffins.
There's something unbearably poignant about the size of a child's coffin. It just wrenches at you.

...I have always said and I will always say that nothing - nothing - I will ever see will compare to the horrors of that day.