Thick, dark slurry flecked with stones and twigs covers the entire ground floor of Ralph Connor and Tina Honeyfield’s terraced house in the former coal mining village of Cwmtillery in south Wales. They use the lights on their phone to show what happened when a long-abandoned coal tip collapsed during last weekend’s torrential rainfall and surged through their front and back doors.
“Our house bore the brunt of the landslide… I spent an hour holding the door to prevent the slurry from getting in [last Sunday night],” says Connor, 49, as he stands in the cold gloom of their powerless living room. “It was frightening but when you are in it, you just react. It’s fight or flight.”
