New Zealand traumatised by Pike River mine disaster (BBC) {29 declared dead; photos at link}

[eppur_se_muova]

New Zealand has begun to mourn 29 miners who were declared dead earlier after a second explosion ripped through the shaft where they were trapped.

A memorial service was held in the town of Greymouth, and Prime Minister John Key said it was a "national tragedy".

Some devastated relatives said the men, trapped since last Friday, could have been saved if rescuers had been faster.

Queen Elizabeth, who is New Zealand's head of state, said she was deeply saddened by the disaster.

"I send my thanks and deep appreciation to everyone who has worked so hard to attempt a rescue, and also to those who will have a part to play in the task of healing the pain that is being felt throughout New Zealand and around the world," she said.
***
more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11831848

[GliderGuider]

1. We were all hoping for another Chilean miracle.

My deepest condolences to the families of the miners, and to all New Zealanders.

[jwirr]

2. What commodity did these 29 miners die for? What kind of mine?

[GliderGuider]

3. We know. This is not the time for that.

:grouphug:

[jwirr]

4. Just want to know what kind of mine it is.

[GliderGuider]

5. Sorry, I get so used to disguised snark around here... It's a coal mine. nt

[jwirr]

6. Thank you.

[NNadir]

8. Yeah. Let's not talk about it. Why talk about it? Why mention it?

Say nothing. Respect for the dead and all that. We all know.

Is there some particular reason that we all need a group hug and a moment of silence for these dead miners, as opposed to the thousands of Chinese miners who die every year?

From my perspective, the reverance is ersatz.

This, like the 10's of thousands of coal mining deaths in the last decade will go down the memory hole, although we can never hear enough about Native American uranium miners living in a coal mining region who may have developed lung cancer twenty years after leaving their jobs.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69H08Z20101018">In a tip of the iceberg moment in China last month, an equivalent number of coal miners died digging coal.

Shhhh. Don't mention it. We're, um, showing respect.

Why not show a little anger?

Now let's go back to fear and fantasy at Greenpeace. Not one of them ever got naked in a coal mine, I'll bet, in fact, none of them have been near a coal mine in the consumer driven lives.

[GliderGuider]

10. A minute of silence wouldn't kill you. nt

[Nihil]

12. Deleted message

... but you could always give it a try anyway ...
:evilgrin:

[Kennah]

7. 29 dead coal miners in WV; 29 dead coal miners in NZ

I'm not given to conspiracy theories, but WTF is going on here?

[Nihil]

9. It's called "coincidence".

33 miners were rescued in the famous event in Chile.

34 miners died in one almost unnoticed event in China (via Nnadir's link).

Sometimes the numbers will match up, sometimes they don't.

:shrug:

[Kennah]

13. Removing my tinfoil cap

[txlibdem]

11. Dead men tell no tales

I'm sure you've heard that before...

[mr_flibble]

14. Conspiracy theories? What conspiracy theories...

Now I'm not given to conspiracy theories but this whole saga has had the aroma of a barrel of deceased rodents from the very beginning.

1. A police officer has taken control of the whole affair from the beginning and made it very clear that he was letting no one into the mine. Why a police office, what does he know about mine rescues, surely this should have been run by some other person more qualified.
2. Reports from the police officer and the mine CEO about the gas have been confusing in some cases calling it toxic and at other times explosive.
3. In previous disasters over here the first thing to be done was to ventilate the mine to expel gasses but no such action has been taken.
4. There was a ventilation shaft into the mine that the explosion had travelled up and destroyed the fan but no attempt has been made to use that shaft to either see into the mine or attach another fan to ventilate the mine. In fact a new fan that was flow in from Australia was flown in by a hercules but it was decided that it would not be used at that time.
5. A lot of time was wasted messing about supposedly making a military robot waterproof as the mine walkway was wet.
6. The robot was deemed ready to go but was not sent in for no apparent reason.
7. When the robot went in many hours later it was stopped by a "waterfall". The long "gun barrel" entrance to the mine slopes upwards into the mountain but no water could be seen gushing from the mouth of the mine which would be the case if there was a waterfall in there.
8. The robot only went 0.5km in 2H despite video pictures of it travelling at about a slow walking pace when it was demonstrated outside the mine. Walking pace would be a conservative 3km/H but the robot only made about one sixth of that speed. (more later)
9. We eventually get to see a video of the mine entrance showing the blast exiting, apparently this was considered not to be relevant to the families of the miners or the public. The video contains lots of a static scene before the blast but cuts off just as some large piece of paper or cloth is exiting for some reason.
10. The police officer has doubts that it will ever be safe to enter the mine.
11. The second blast happens just at a time when the mine CEO's men had gone down to the pub for a drink so only the CEO and police officer were there to witness it. No video of this last was released. At this point it was suddenly decreed that they were all dead now, there was no questioning that this as otherwise by the CEO or police officer.
12. The police officer talks of being vindicated for his continued FIRM stance that no-one should go into the mine. He was asked by a reporter if anyone else had witnessed the blast but became obstructive at that point and walked off.
13. The third blast happens exactly 5 minutes before a memorial service was being held for the staff near the mine head while they were assembling.
14. All the way through in each briefing, the mine CEO has an answer for every question without any suggestion that anything was done incorrectly and shows more fear than sadness after announcing that the second blast had killed all the men.
15. A reporter finally pops the point to the CEO that the best time to go into the mine for a rescue in these circumstances is just after a blast when the explosive gasses and oxygen have all been used up. He states that the window of opportunity would be 60 to 120 minutes and there would not be enough time but it's only 2.7km from the entrance to a point where they could get a good perspective of what's going on and they could have driven a jeep in and out quickly.
16. Despite there being an existing ventilation shaft they laboriously drill a new 150m hole so they can make measurements of air quality and send a camera down. This takes time because of hitting hard rock at 140m odd and needs to bit swapped to a diamond type for the last part to stop sparks causing an explosion. Despite drilling into a mine shaft that is two cars width, they miss and only just graze the wall of the shaft allowing them to see that the air quality is full of methane but unfortunately not allowing them to send a camera down for a look.
17. These events may not all be in full chronological order but roughly right.
18. A "snuff" device is sent in from Australia (why we haven't got any of this gear beats me) which is basically a jet engine that puts out lots of nitrogen and so is coupled to the entrance to the mine, purging it and putting out any fires.
19. Local people worked their butts off getting it ready to use but 24 hours later it had not been started.
20. A fifth explosion happens and flames can be seen coming out of the original ventilation shaft.
21. They are now saying that they will not try to snuff the fire and will just starve it of oxygen by blocking the shafts with steel and concrete but apparently these fires can go on for years underground.
22. Forgot to add that halfway through all this the original robot suddenly started working again for no apparent reason and was able to travel up the entrance shaft where it spotted the discarded helmet and lamp of one of the miners that had escaped after the first blast. It was directly facing the robot and the lamp was still glowing brightly some 112h after the first blast. Apparently these battery powered lamps are designed to run for a miners maximum shift of 12h. Pretty nice piece of over-engineering if you ask me.
23. Sound like the police office will be completely vilified when he said that no one will ever enter that mine again.
24. The mine has already made insurance claims last week and I guess this may mean it will be a write-off.
25. There are probably more things that I have forgotten about at the moment but each day's news brings a catalogue of strange happenings.
26. Oh, of course, there is going to be a royal commission of enquiry on this whole matter but that will probably take a year, all the evidence will be sealed off underground and how much are we going to believe that, look at what happened with the erebus (sp?) disaster.

So is this insurance fraud or maybe there is something down there that they don't want us to see.

Sorry for the rant. I care about my fellow kiwis and this has concerned me from the very beginning.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mr_flibble]

16. What are they trying to achieve?

Now they finally have he gag engine running it looks like they are saying they will be going into the mine to recover the bodies but they have also made a mention that the mine may be their final resting place so I guess that means the gag approach WILL "fail" so that they will be forced to plug the mine permanently with concrete. I'd put money on this happening as it seem like they are just going through the motions.

Some interesting facts are that the CEO has only been there for two months, shades of 911 there, and prior to this whole affair they were apparently talking to investors about expanding the mine. I wonder if the investors turned down the idea so there was a lack of money coming into the mine to run it so they just want to kill the thing and claim on the insurance rather than go bankrupt, again this has shades of 911.

Of course, if you really want to look outside the box, perhaps they found archaeological remains of the Moriori (spelling), people that have been widely rumoured to have lived here before the Maori came here, and this would cause considerable political strife in this country. If the part of the mine tunnel they drilled through was only 150m deep at that point, it's possible the are more shallow sections they were excavating. This is a real off-the-wall idea as these sort of depths would be unlikely to have occurred via natural processes of soil deposition. That said, it would not be the first time I've heard of archaeological excavations being hushed up for this reason. This would account for the major police involvement controlling this whole disaster.