The New Zealand Labor Party government’s Pike River Recovery Agency (PRRA) aims to install the first of two seals in the underground coal mine this week, having already removed technical equipment. Work on the 170-meter temporary joint inside the gallery, or entrance tunnel, was due to start last week, but was delayed by bad weather.
Just over two years ago, on May 21, 2019, PRRA workers returned to the mine to determine the causes of the November 2010 explosions that killed 29 workers. Labor and their allies, the Greens and New Zealand’s First Party, pledged in the 2017 election to carry out the clandestine investigation and try to recover the bodies from the mine.
By putting an end to the re-entry, the government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is continuing a cover-up operation, started by the previous National Party government, aimed at protecting the leaders of the Pike River Coal who have turned the mine into a death trap. To date, no one has been held responsible for the extremely dangerous design of the company. He failed to construct a proper emergency exit, and severely inadequate ventilation allowed methane to reach explosive levels dozens of times before the disaster.
After exploring the 2.26-kilometer drift, Labor refused to enter work on the mine, with Pike River Return Secretary Andrew Little saying the investigation had become too costly. The government refuses to go beyond two piles of coal to examine the Pike River underground ventilator, which allegedly set off the first explosion. Independent mining experts working on behalf of the families say it would cost less than $ 8 million to get to the site.
In an email to families in Pike River on July 5, PRRA CEO Dave Gawn said a “plastic mesh fence” was installed last week 190 meters inside the gallery. Two refuge chambers have been removed, along with “gas monitoring equipment, real-time geotechnical monitoring equipment and the rapid fill-change station… The plan is now to build the 170m barrier this week. “. After that, a permanent concrete seal will be installed 30 meters inside the gallery. PRRA has not specified when this will happen.
“The cryogenic unit for the nitrogen plant is due to be removed from the site next week,” Gawn continued, “followed by other specialist equipment in the coming weeks, including 2 loaders, 2 specialist mining vehicles and attachments. and refuge rooms “.
All of this continues despite legal action taken by representatives of the majority of families challenging the government’s decision to seal and abandon the crime scene and leave the bodies and crucial evidence locked away in the mine forever. The PRRA’s actions reveal the utter fraud of its claim to “work in partnership with the families of Pike River”.
Gawn said Bernie Monk, whose son Michael died in the mine, “is carrying the case personally, but says he has the support of twenty-four of the families of the twenty-nine men who died. Bernie does not identify if there is consensus on his case within individual families. “
In fact, when the application for judicial review was filed with the Wellington High Court on June 4, the Pike River Families Group (PRFG) committee said in a press release that the action had the support of 22 of the 29 families.
Carol Rose, whose son Stuart died in the mine, told the World Socialist Website that the PRRA had “cut months of work.” Summarizing the families’ decade-long struggle to investigate the mine, she said: “We have been screwed up by successive governments, but this government is by far the most arrogant.
Cloe Nieper, whose husband Kane was killed in the disaster, said the PRFG received strong support for their campaign, including more than 6,000 people supporting a petition to the government to stop sealing the mine. “I read some of the reviews and they are pretty amazing. I think people are very supportive and a lot of people always want to know what we want to know, they want answers and they want us to have justice. “
She said people were “stunned” by the information that came to light, including the families’ posting of a photo of a body underground. The photo is one of many taken in the months following the disaster by cameras lowered through boreholes in the mine, which debunk the lies of the previous National Party government that everything in the mine was destroyed by fire and that there would be nothing left to recover.
Nieper said the money needed to search the fan site was “pennies compared to what they spent on other things, like the America’s Cup. [yacht race], for example, ”and the recently announced government plan for a $ 685 million cycle bridge over Auckland Harbor. “They could easily walk through that drop off the roof,” she said. “Why are they suddenly pulling on the pin when they’re so close?” “
She criticized the PRRA for not having waited until the families’ legal action was underway. “The government wants to shut it down very quickly. Something is wrong, something is definitely being covered up again.
Malcolm Campbell, whose son Malcolm died in the disaster, wrote on Facebook on June 28: “We just want the government to postpone sealing the mine until all avenues are investigated. If they don’t listen and seal the mine, we’ll never get closure.
He pointed out that Minister Andrew Little was the head of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) when the mine exploded, and that “along with the managers of the mine, and in particular the health and safety management, they said the mine was safe. In fact, the union had sent men “to a dangerous and dangerous workplace”.
After the first explosion, Little mistakenly told media that the union was not aware of any issues with the mine. In fact, he was aware of the lack of an emergency exit and workers’ concerns about unsafe conditions. But the EPMU chose to remain silent and did not attempt to organize an industrial campaign in defense of its members.
EPMU’s successor, the E tū union, approached the government to support the closure of the investigation, essentially continuing its role as an advocate for the management of the company.
The PRRA, backed by corporate media, seeks to fuel the illusion that the police investigation will still be able to examine evidence underground, after the mine is sealed, with cameras lowered in the boreholes. If the boreholes are sufficient to collect forensic evidence for prosecution, it begs the question: why didn’t the police do it ten years ago? In fact, the 2012 royal commission and the police themselves have previously said the exact cause of the disaster cannot be determined without human reentry.
The Greymouth Star reported last Saturday that only one of six planned boreholes would examine the ventilator site. Electrical engineer Richard Healey, who has conducted extensive research into the Pike River disaster along with some of the families, told the WSWS that the majority of drilling is unlikely to reveal significant new information about the causes. explosions.
He added that anything on the fan site “will be warped, covered in debris” and that it would take close examination of the machines “to find anything meaningful.” Healey compared it to the plane crash investigation: “Anyone can see the large pieces of metal lying on the ground, but you have to examine those pieces of metal under a microscope to determine the forces involved, not only take pictures. “
Healey also pointed out that there were no plans to use a camera to investigate the cause of a ruptured compressed air line seconds before the first explosion. Examining this site beyond the roof fall could provide valuable information about the disaster.
A press release published by the World Socialist Website At the end of last month, he called on “workers in New Zealand and abroad to support families’ demand for the government to reverse its decision to seal the mine. The underground investigation must continue in order to uncover the whole truth about the causes of the explosions and to hold those responsible to account. “
