All 29 miners trapped underground in a New Zealand mine for five days are believed to be dead following a second explosion in the Pike River coal mine, police said on Wednesday.
“It is our belief that no one has survived and everyone will have perished. This is one of the most tragic things I have had to do as a police office,” police superintendent Gary Knowles told reporters.
The miners were trapped in the 2,3km main tunnel last Friday night when methane gas caused a massive explosion in the mountain on New Zealand’s south island.
Deadly toxic gas and fears of further explosions stopped rescuers entering the mine, despite desperate pleas by the miners’ relatives that rescue teams enter the mine to find their husbands and sons.
Rescuers used robots and electronic devices to explore for life in the mine, but there were no signs that any survived the initial blast.
On Wednesday morning rescuers said there was little chance any of the miners were still alive, but continued to monitor toxic gas levels hoping the air would clear enough for rescue teams to enter the mine.
A few hours later a massive explosion occurred.
“The cause was the build up over the last six days of the gases again. A lethal mixture ignited the entire mine,” said local mayor Tony Kokshoorn.
“It was a far larger [explosion] than the first one and at that point it was the end of everyone. This is the west coast’s darkest hour,” said Kokshoorn.
EWN said that the SA man — Koos Jonker — was friendly and down to earth, and was apparently uncomfortable working at Pike River because he felt it was not safe.
Mine chief Peter Whittall said the second explosion was what rescuers had always feared.
“Its dangerous and its hazardous and the rescue teams would be putting their lives gravely at risk [to enter the mine]. While we were there and making that assessment, exactly what we said could happen, happened,” said Whittall.
“Realistically many would never have come out alive,” said a tearful Whittall.
Relatives of the dead miners were angry that rescuers had not immediately entered the mine to save their loved ones. They said that straight after the first blast the deadly gases would have been consumed in the explosion.
“If they do find that people were alive after that first blast there is going to be a lot of problems,” said Laurie Drew, father of 21-year-old trapped miner Zen.
“Now the truth can’t come out because no one down there will come out alive,” said Drew.
There have been previous examples of mine rescue attempts being called off because of the danger with the bodies left entombed at the site.
Three years ago in Utah, a search for six miners trapped in the Crandall Canyon Mine, a bituminous coal mine, was abandoned after three rescue workers were killed.
About 50km to the North of the Pike River mine, a mine is still believed to be burning underground, nearly 60 years after it first caught fire.
Condolences
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Wednesday said the nation sent its condolences to New Zealand.
“Our hearts go out to them and on behalf of the Australian people I give the condolences of this nation,” Gillard said.
Two Australians — Joshua Ufer (25) and 49-year-old William Joynson — were among the 29 men trapped at the mine and Gillard spoke directly to their loved ones.
“To those families we especially say we want you to have our condolences, we want you to understand the nation is grieving with you,” Gillard said.
Gillard said the South Island’s west coast community near Greymouth was a community suffering a “dreadful loss”.
“We send our best wishes and our best wishes, sympathy and support go to the two Australian families now living with this dreadful and tragic news,” she said.
Long list of tragedies
The country’s worst tragedy, in 1896, claimed 65 lives in a mine at Brunner, close to the Pike River Mine.
The Brunner disaster was also believed to have been caused by a methane gas explosion with the gas evident throughout the coal seams in the Grey region of the South Island’s West Coast.
In 1967, at the Strongman mine on the other side of the hill range that houses Pike River, an explosion killed 19 miners.
The industry has suffered several other disasters, including a blast which killed 34 miners at Kaitangata in 1879 and the deaths of 43 workers at Huntly in 1914 when a naked flame ignited underground gases.
At the Glen Afton mine near Huntly 11 men were asphyxiated by carbon monoxide in 1939, and in 1926, an explosion killed nine men at the Dobson mine near Greymouth.
Increased opencast mining has brought greater levels of safety to the industry in New Zealand and Pike River is among a handful of underground operations that still remain.
Industrial scale mining in New Zealand began in the gold rushes of the 1860s. The coal sector grew strongly in the 1990s based on exports to Japan, India, South Africa, China and Brazil, hitting five million tonnes in 2003.
The shipments of hard-coking coal, which is used to make steel, were dug from the mountainous West Coast region where Pike River is among 13 coalfields.
New Zealand has an estimated 15-billion tonnes of in-ground coal reserves, much of it in the southern section of the South Island and the rugged West Coast.
New Zealand’s worst mining accidents
Kaitangata, February 21 1879: 34 miners die in an explosion
- Brunner, March 26, 1896: 65 are suffocated in a gas accident, New Zealand’s worst industrial disaster
- Ralph’s mine, Huntly, September 12, 1914: 43 miners killed in a gas explosion
- Dobson mine, December 3, 1926: nine die in an explosion
- Glen Afton mine, Huntly, September 24, 1939: 11 men killed by carbon monoxide poisoning
- Strongman mine, January 19, 1967: 19 killed in an explosion
– Reuters, AFP