Sydney Radio Segment: 25th November, 2010

New Zealand experienced its biggest one-off accidental loss of life in 31 years yesterday when 29 coal miners were killed in an underground explosion on the West Coast of the South Island.  The men had been trapped in Greymouth’s Pike River coal mine by an initial accident last Friday after which their condition was unknown.  Such was the gaseous aftermath of the first blast that human rescue efforts were deemed too dangerous.  Two robots had been sent along the shaft and had fed back some video footage on conditions before the 2:37pm explosion destroyed all hope of finding the men alive.

It was a tragic end to a story that had held the country’s attention for five days.  Inevitably there were tensions amongst the family of the men over a perceived lack of rescue action. Some veterans claimed that in an earlier era fellow miners would have immediately gone back into the shaft to bring back their comrades.  However, one rescue expert has stated this morning that the window in which to safely launch a rescue effort would have been narrowly confined to the four hours after the first blast, in the period when dangerous gases had burnt off and before the carbon monoxide and methane had again built up to explosive levels.  In any case, the chance of the minors surviving on Friday is in retrospect thought slight given the presumed low amount of oxygen left in the mine.

Politicians and media have flocked to the West Coast to express sympathy and raise their profiles.  Much has been made of the traditional stoicism of a region best known for its appalling weather and a correspondingly hard bitten outlook on life.  Prime Minister John Key made a fair attempt at a statesmanlike speech in the wake of the worst possible news and there has been a predictable signalling of official enquiries to come.  However, the first priority is clearly the recovery of the bodies themselves, a task which will take some time given the continued hazardous underground conditions.