The Pike River Recovery Team will likely reach another milestone before Christmas as the team prepares to tunnel through a Rocsil plug as families grieve the ten year anniversary of the disaster.
The milestone comes just after the ten year anniversary of the Pike River mine explosion where 29 miners perished.
The recovery teams have so far successfully cleared and searched and bolted 2211 metres of the 2500 metre Pike River mine drift, but the search efforts do little to appease the pain held by many families now almost ten years on from the disaster.
Speaking to Radio New Zealand on the anniversary of the disaster, the mother of a fallen miner, Sonya Rockhouse said “Sometimes it feels like lifetimes and other times it feels like it was yesterday”
She told Radio NZ that the families of the fallen 29 miners had been deceived after the disaster.
“What they should have done was told us the truth. They should have been truthful with us from the beginning. We might not have liked it but we would have eventually accepted it. We felt like over and over and over we were being traumatised by all the lies and deceit that was happening. We don’t want to see other families having to suffer and fight the way we’ve had to so that’s one thing that needs to change along with the health and safety laws which should work hand and hand really.”
Listen to the Radio New Zealand Podcast here.
The Pike River Recovery Agency confirmed that they are also undertaking detailed planning for the installation of the ventilation control device – VCD2 – effectively a wall with an airlock/doors.
“VCD will be built outbye the plug (on the portal or entrance side of the plug), which will mean fresh air will be able to be circulated right up to the VCD. After that, mineworkers wearing BG4 (long duration breathing apparatus) will go through an airlock door in the VCD wall, tunnel through (approximately 10metres) the plug, and recover the last few metres to the roof fall, to carry out the final forensic searches of the drift ” the Agency said.
The recovery efforts will pause during the Christmas New Year season and the mine site will close at the end of the day on Wednesday 23 December and reopen on Tuesday 5 January 2021.
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