GREYMOUTH – Flags are flying at half mast as church bells tolled across New Zealand yesterday to mourn the country’s worst mining disaster in nearly 70 years.
The government has promised an independent inquiry into the tragedy, in which 29 miners died after an explosion trapped them underground nearly a week ago at the Pike River Coal mine on the rugged west coast of the South Island.
“The country is unified in its grief and hopefully it will give some comfort to the families that have been left behind,” prime minister John Key told Radio New Zealand. He said an independent inquiry would be held in addition to investigations by the police, the labour department and Pike River Coal.
“We need answers to what happened at Pike River,” Mr Key added. “We owe it to those families.”
The 29 miners were trapped in the 2.3km main tunnel last Friday night when methane gas caused a massive explosion in the mountain. Two other miners working away from the coal face narrowly escaped and walked out of the mine.
On Wednesday, rescue teams were checking gas levels before entering the mine when a second explosion occurred.
The prime minister said a meeting with family members yesterday contained “an awful lot of sorrow but not anger”. The main priority now was to see the men’s bodies returned.
Mine officials said the toxic gases which prevented rescue teams entering the mine could delay retrieval of the bodies for possibly weeks or months.
“We have given an undertaking to the families that we will bring their boys back for them,” mine chief Peter Whittall told a news conference yesterday.
Mr Whittall said the families did not want to seal the mine, making it a tomb for their husbands and sons. Mine officials say they had made no decision on when or whether the mine would resume operations. – (Reuters)