The problem of landslides in spoil tips was first brought to public attention in October 1966 in English speaking world when a spoil tip at Aberfan in Wales gave way, killing 144 people, 116 of them children. The tip was built over a spring, increasing its instability, and its height exceeded guidelines. Water from heavy rainfall had built up inside the tip, weakening the structure, until it suddenly collapsed onto a school below.
The wider issue of stability had been known about prior to the Aberfan disaster; for example, it was discussed in a paper by Professor George Knox in 1927, but received little serious consideration by professional engineers and geologists — even to those directly concerned with mining. Also Aberfan disaster was not the first landslide with casualties: for example, in 1955 two successive landslides killed 73 people in Sasebo, Nagasaki in Japan.[ja]
In February 2013, a spoil tip landslip caused the temporary closure of the Scunthorpe to Doncaster railway line in England.
Landslides are rare in spoil tips after settling and vegetation growth act to stabilise the spoil. However, when heavy rain falls on spoil tips that are undergoing combustion, infiltrated water changes to steam; increasing pressure that may lead to a landslide. In Herstal, Belgium, a landslide on the Petite Bacnure spoil tip in April 1999 closed off a street for many years.