Pike River search unlikely to find workers' bodies, agency head says

Thursday, 1 October 2020

The recovery agency is 1980 metres into the Pike River mine, 57km from Greymouth.

Finding remains of any of the 29 men killed in the Pike River mine disaster is possible, but not probable, according to the head of the recovery operation.

The Pike River Recovery Agency is now 1980 metres into the West Coast coalmine, which it first entered last year looking for evidence of the cause of the disaster.

Just two men escaped the mine alive on the afternoon of 19 November, 2010, after the first of a series of gas explosions.

Pictures of the 29 men killed at Pike River in November 2010. No bodies or remains have yet been recovered.

Agency chief executive Dave Gawn said in Christchurch on Thursday they aim to reach the rockfall area, 2300m down the main shaft from the entrance portal, by the end of December.

**READ MORE:

This loader, last driven by Pike River survivor Russell Smith, was recovered in August from 1581m up the Pike River mine drift.

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The journey down the Pike River mine drift. The recovery operation has now reached the pit bottom, 1.6km down the drift.

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They will then begin tidying up so they can hand over the mine to the Department of Conservation. They expect to wind up the agency by mid-2021, he said.

Gawn said the agency’s tasks were to enter the mine and gather evidence, to give the deceased men’s families a better understanding of what had happened, and to recover any bodies or remains if possible.

The agency has a budget of $51.6 million, which he said should be sufficient unless they encounter “unknown unknowns” before the end of the operation.

Gawn said they have so far had to deal with more debris than expected.

“There is significant blast damage.”

Recovery workers have recently spotted the loader driven by mine survivor Daniel Rockhouse in a branch off the main shaft.

They will later remove it as they did with the first loader they encountered in August, that driven by fellow survivor Russell Smith.

Earlier this year they recovered two robots sent into the mine in 2017.

The agency is observing and photographing the mine drift as it travels through it, and passing all evidence recovered to police for investigation, Gawn said.

“There is a possibility that we will come across some human remains … I wouldn’t go so far as to say it is probable”.

Off the main shaft in the area they have reached, known as the Pit Bottom in Stone area, are seven “roadways” covering about 600m.

Covid regulations cost the agency two months’ underground work which they used for planning, and they have since made up time in the mine with longer shifts, Gawn said.

Delays are also being caused by the rainforest weather, he said.

Because nitrogen is being pumped into the mine, it must be cleared of workers for safety reasons if there are lightening alerts within 50km.