Former deputy PM says New Zealand government is covering up mine disaster
The Labour Party-led government’s Pike River Recovery Agency (PRRA) is continuing work on sealing the Pike River coal mine where 29 people were killed in the November 2010 disaster. The aim is to prevent the examination of crucial evidence about what sparked a series of explosions.
For more than a decade the political establishment has protected those responsible for the disaster, including former managers, chief executives and directors of Pike River Coal. A 2012 royal commission of inquiry established that the company endangered its workers’ lives in order to save money. The mine had grossly inadequate ventilation and methane gas monitoring, an extremely dangerous underground fan, and no emergency exit as required by law. No one has ever been held accountable for turning the mine into a death trap.
UK mines rescue expert: Sealing Pike River mine “morally and professionally indefensible”
23 July 2021
The
World Socialist Web Site is reprinting, with permission, a letter sent by UK mines rescue expert Brian Robinson earlier this month to Pike River Recovery Agency (PRRA) chief executive Dave Gawn, opposing the decision to seal Pike River mine and abandon the underground investigation into the causes of the 2010 disaster that killed 29 people. The government is currently installing the first of two seals, and intends to put in a second, permanent concrete barrier as quickly as possible, regardless of legal challenges by family members of the victims.
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An urgent warning: NZ Labour government moves to seal Pike River mine
The New Zealand government’s Pike River Recovery Agency (PRRA) resumed work this week on installing the first of two seals in the Pike River underground coal mine.
The Labour Party-led government is intent on ending an underground investigation into the November 2010 disaster in the mine, which killed 29 people. It has brushed aside the objections of the Pike River Families Group Committee, which represents the majority of the 29 families. These families are demanding that the investigation proceed into the mine workings to examine crucial evidence about what caused the underground explosions. They are backed by several international mining experts who have explained that this can be done safely.
A representative of 22 of the Pike River families says the group plans to seek a court injunction to stop the mine being permanently sealed.
Protesters plan to go to court to stop the Pike River mine, where 29 men died in 2010, from being sealed.
Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
A group of more than two dozen of the victims families and their supporters yesterday protested against the government s intention to close the mine where 29 men died in a series of explosions in 2010.
Bernie Monk, whose son was killed in the disaster, said the families want the work halted, and for the mine to remain unsealed until the police have finished their investigation into the disaster.