When the news of 29 miners trapped in the West Coast hit the wires and columns of newspapers on November 19, the immediate thought was that it would not descend to depths of despair.
“After all,” many would have told themselves, “there is technology and of course immediate precedence. Did not all the 33 miners holed up in a Chile mine for two months, brought up to safety?
But as hours slipped into days, we hoped for a miracle to happen; a miracle that would bring the miners out of the darkness back to light and back to their families. “All will be well again,” we told ourselves.
Our bold surmise may have also been encouraged by the devastating earthquake in Christchurch on September 4, which left all lives in tact, albeit showing its wrath on property.
“We are a nation of simple, loving and caring people. We live in that remote corner of the world where no harm can come,” many told each other.
And millions of people prayed, lighting candles in the precincts of their homes, refusing to think of the worst. Because that is not our trait as Kiwis.
It is one of those inexplicable things in life that more often than not what we fear, and not we hope for, comes true. If the first explosion at the start of the miners’ crisis left some hope in our hearts, the second one that occurred on November 24 blew out all hopes. Hours later, Police Superintendent Gary Knowles announced that none of the miners would have survived the blast and that they were being pronounced dead.
Until that fateful day last fortnight, many New Zealanders may not have even heard of the Pike River Coal Company or the rugged West Coast of the South Island, save for those who either make it that way now and then and those who read about geography from time to time.
One of New Zealand’s remotest regions, cut off from the rest of the South Island by mountains, it has long been a centre for mining and forestry, though it has recently become famous for its Tolkienesque scenery. The launch of the Pike River operation in 2008 brought a welcome boost to a depressed jobs market.
New Zealand’s only listed coal company, it specialises in high-quality coking coal for the Asian steel industry. No funding from its main shareholder, New Zealand Oil & Gas Limited, which holds a 29% share, is guaranteed beyond December.
The word around the world was that although we were hoping for the best, we were prepared for the worst. The site of the first explosion was only 120 metres underground, but 2 km from the mine’s entrance. Not a word was ever heard from the missing men: 24 New Zealanders, two Britons, two Australians and a South African, ranging in age from 17 to 62.
Rescuers scrambled to the mine’s head but they were stymied by a build-up of poisonous gases. As in Chile, the miners’ relatives assembled, in the nearby town of Greymouth, their anger growing in the face of the official view that a rescue attempt would be too dangerous. In the final days, two robots went in, Poignantly, the second returned with photographs of a mining helmet, its light still glowing.
Safety has long been a controversial issue in the mining business especially with sub-surface mining. While mining today is substantially safer than it was in the previous decades, mining accidents are often very high profile, such as the Pike River disaster
The Courrières mine disaster, Europe’s worst mining accident, caused the death of 1099 miners (including many children) in Northern France on 10 March 1906. It seems that this disaster was surpassed only by the Benxihu Colliery accident in China on April 26, 1942, which killed 1549 miners.
Government figures indicate that 5000 Chinese miners die in accidents each year, while other reports have suggested a figure as high as 20,000.
Mining ventilation is a significant safety concern for many miners. Poor ventilation of the mines causes exposure to harmful gases, heat and dust inside sub-surface mines. These can cause harmful physiological effects, including death. The concentration of methane and other airborne contaminants underground can generally be controlled by dilution (ventilation), capture before entering the host air stream (methane drainage), or isolation (seals and stoppings).
Prime Minister John Key’s message to the nation was so moving that many heard or read it with tears. As we will went into mourning, our national flag flew half mast almost all functions and parties were cancelled. Our hearts went to the families of the deceased miners; many of us could neither work nor relax.
We as New Zealanders feel such tragedies keenly, not because we are a nation of “just four million people, but because we are a nation of people.”
As trading of shares in Pike River was suspended immediately after that fateful day, Mr Key ordered an immediate inquiry in to the tragedy.
Our coal industry is small (producing the equivalent of 2.8 million tonnes of oil every year with no more than 0.1% of the world’s proven reserves), and accidents are blissfully infrequent.
Former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill said, “A man does what he must, in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.”
Despite the disaster, mining will continue as a vocation and an effort to boost jobs and economic development.
The tragedy has given a wakeup call to the rest of the world to discuss the dangers of mining yet again.
Some point to China saying that it has the worst mining record of 2600 deaths last year. But this is not a number game- one life lost is one too many. There must be a safer way of mining.
