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Finding the remains of any of the 29 men killed in the Pike River mine disaster is possible, but not likely, according to the head of the recovery operation.
The Pike River Recovery Agency is now 1,950 feet from the West Coast coal mine, which it first entered last year looking for evidence of the cause of the disaster.
Only two men escaped the mine alive on the afternoon of November 19, 2010, after the first of a series of gas explosions.
The agency’s chief executive, Dave Gawn, said in Christchurch on Thursday that its goal is to reach the rockfall zone, 2,300 meters down the main shaft from the entrance portal, by late December.
Joanne Carroll / THINGS
The reclamation agency is located 1,980 meters from the Pike River Mine, 57 km from Greymouth.
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Then they will start ordering so they can deliver the mine to the Department of Conservation. They hope to liquidate the agency in mid-2021, he said.
Gawn said the agency’s tasks were to enter the mine and gather evidence, give the families of the deceased men a better understanding of what had happened, and recover the bodies or remains if possible.
Phil Walter / Getty Images
Photographs of the 29 men killed in the Pike River in November 2010. No bodies or remains have yet been recovered.
The agency has a budget of $ 51.6 million, which it said should be sufficient unless they run into “unknown unknowns” before the end of the operation.
Gawn said they have had to deal with more debris so far than expected.
“There is significant explosion damage.”
Recovery workers have recently seen the loader driven by mine survivor Daniel Rockhouse on a branch of the main shaft.
Supplied
This loader, last powered by Pike River survivor Russell Smith, was recovered in August from 1581 m upstream from the Pike River mine drift.
They will later remove it as they did the first charger they found in August, the one driven by his surviving partner Russell Smith.
Earlier this year they recovered two robots sent to the mine in 2017.
The agency is observing and photographing the mine drift as it passes through and passing all recovered evidence to the police for investigation, Gawn said.
“There is a possibility that we will find some human remains … I would not go so far as to say that it is likely.”
Outside of the main well in the area they have reached, known as the bottom of the well in the Stone area, there are seven “roads” that cover approximately 600 m.
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The Pike River Mine Drift Journey. The recovery operation has reached the bottom of the well, 1.6 km for drift.
Covid regulations cost the agency two months of underground work which they used for planning, and they have since made up time at the mine with longer shifts, Gawn said.
The delays are also being caused by the rainforest climate, he said.
Because nitrogen is being pumped into the mine, workers must be cleared for safety reasons if there are lightning alerts within 50 km.
