Walkers flee as rockface collapses at slate quarry

AN ART student has described the gut-wrenching moment when a huge quarry wall collapsed, sending tonnes of rock and slate thundering towards him.

- ANDREW FORGRAVE

By chance, Aran Jones, 21, caught the dramatic incident on camera at Dinorwig slate quarry, Gwynedd.

He kept filming while others bolted from the area, belatedly joining them as a giant dust cloud billowed into the sky, clearly visible from the village of Llanberis below.

"If there hadn't been a large pit beneath the rockface we could have been in trouble," he said.

Rockfalls are periodically reported at the quarry, once the world's second-largest slate mine. But local people said the noise made by Wednesday's incident was the loudest they'd heard in more than three decades.

The collapse was a sobering reminder of the dangers of a site that's seen surging numbers of visitors in recent years. For some people, it also showed the bravery of quarry workers who reshaped a mountain above Llyn Peris, often with the most rudimentary of tools.