What is the latest on the Pike River mine?
A borehole drilling investigation to gather footage inside the Pike River Mine has come to an end, with images taken over the past two years showing the remains of eight men.
How many died at Pike River?
29 men
On the afternoon of 19 November 2010, an explosion ripped through the remote Pike River mine on the West Coast of the South Island, killing 29 men. Their bodies have not been recovered, and remain in the mine. Underground coal mining has always been a dangerous occupation.
How many people survived the Pike River mine?
Two men
On Friday 19 November 2010 at 3:45pm there was an underground explosion at the Pike River coal mine. Twenty-nine men lost their lives, and their bodies have not been recovered. Their names and details appear on pages 4–5 (see: Pike River mine memorial). Two men survived the explosion.
What is the drift at Pike River?
The drift is a 2.3 km access tunnel from the entrance of the mine to the workings. The workings comprise around 4.3 km of inner tunnels, from where the coal was extracted.
Where is Peter Whittall now?
Wollongong
Mr Whittall left New Zealand in 2014 and married Pike River financial controller Angela Horne. The couple now reportedly live in a $1.3 million lifestyle property in Wollongong, south of Sydney, where Mr Whittall manages a rest home.
What is a Rocsil plug?
The “Rocsil” plug (Rocsil is the brand name for a phenolic plug) covers the width of the drift (about five metres), from floor to roof and a distance of between 10 and 15 metres from one end to the other, so between five and seven metres either side of where the borehole sits in the drift.
How deep is the Pike River mine?
150 to 200 metres
The Pike River mine reaches the Brunner coal seam at depths of 150 to 200 metres below ground level. This is deeper than other NZ open-cast coal mines and likely to be uneconomic.
Why did the Pike River mine disaster happen?
The commission found that the 19 November blast at the mine, on the west coast of the South Island, was caused by a methane gas explosion. The mine was new, and the systems and infrastructure necessary to safely produce coal “had not been completed”.
Have they entered Pike River mine?
When did you first re-enter the Pike River Mine drift? On Tuesday 21 May 2019 a re-entry team comprising Chief Operating Officer Dinghy Pattinson, Mine Deputy Kirk Neilson, and geotechnical engineer Chris Lee opened the airlock doors at the 30m wall and stepped through back into the mine drift.
Who was CEO Pike River mine?
boss Peter Whittall
The Law Society is considering an investigation into the controversial deal done with former Pike River Coal boss Peter Whittall over the 2010 mine disaster. Just days after the tenth anniversary of the Pike River disaster, where 29 men lost their lives on November 19, 2010, the long-running saga has taken a new turn.
Where is the Pike River Mine located?
Pike River Mine
Greymouth
Pike River Mine disaster/Location
How much has Pike River cost?
The recovery project, which cost $51 million, plus at least $10 million for the police – was never about recovering the bodies, which are trapped behind a massive rockfall, but was intended to search the drift for possible evidence of what caused the explosions.
How many bodies were found in the Pike River mine explosion?
More than a decade after the Pike River mine explosion that killed 29 men, the remains of at least two of the men have been found in images taken late last week from a new borehole. Pathologists had reviewed the images and found they captured two sets of human remains, plus a possible third, police said.
Could we ever recover the remains of the Pike River disaster victims?
But they added that the hard-to-reach location meant there was no chance of recovering the remains. The Pike River mining disaster happened in November 2010 when two blasts ripped through the mine. Only two of the 31 miners on shift were able to escape.
How many people died in New Zealand’s Pike River Mine?
29 men were killed in New Zealand’s Pike River Mine. (Stuff) Holling’s mother, Marion Curtin, who has always been against re-entry to the mine, said the discovery was “no big surprise”. “Twenty-nine men died there, so of course their remains are in the mine.
What is happening at the Pike River Mine?
The Pike River Recovery Agency has completed a $50 million re-entry of the mine’s access tunnel, or drift, with the aim of recovering evidence to help a police criminal investigation. The mine has already been sealed at the 170-metre and 30m points of the drift.