The lifelong impact of surviving disaster

It has been a month since the twin earthquakes in Venezuela, estimated to have killed more than 5,000 people. But there have also been some remarkable stories of rescue with people being pulled alive from the rubble many days after the disaster.

In our conversations, we bring together people who survived disasters to discuss the long-term impact the events have had on their lives.

Marinel lived through Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013 and was one of the strongest typhoons in recorded history.

Jeff was a pupil at the junior school in Aberfan in South Wales. In 1966, 116 children were killed when waste from coal mines crashed down the mountainside engulfing his school.

“I did go to one counsellor and that counsellor said to me, when you review what you’ve been through, think of happy things like birthday parties,” Jeff tells us. “Well, the majority of people that would have come to my birthday party were now gone.”

We also bring together rescue workers to hear what motivates them and how they cope with confronting death and destruction.

Presenter: James Reynolds
BBC producers: Ryan Keane, Lindsay Brown and Isabella Bull
Boffin Media producer: Richard Hollingham
Editors: Arja Haikonen and Harriet Oliver

A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC World Service Outside Source team

(Photo: Jeff Edwards MBE as a schoolboy aged 8, the age he was when he survived the Aberfan disaster. Credit: Barry Batchelor, Press Association)