What it’s like inside Pike River mine
The father of one of the 29 men killed when Pike River mine exploded says it was ‘‘bloody freezing’’ when he went into the mine for the first time.
Bernie Monk, whose son Michael died in the disaster, entered the mine last Thursday with
Newshub journalist
Patrick Gower.
It was the closest he’d been to his son in eight years,
Monk said.
He took time to think about his son and the other
28 men still in the mine but the experience wasn’t as moving as he expected, he said.
‘‘Going in wasn’t as emotional as I thought it was going to be,’’ he said.
‘‘It didn’t achieve much for me. You don’t move on, you move forward.’’
He entered the mine because he wanted ‘‘to show the country that the families are prepared to go in’’, he said.
When he entered the portal it was 96.5 per cent methane beyond the 30m seal. The agency planned to purge the mine of methane using nitrogen and then allow fresh air in to the end of the drift, or mine access tunnel.
‘‘It’s bloody freezing in there,’’ said Monk. ‘‘You can see the icicles on the roof, that’s how cold it is.’’
The Pike River Agency had allowed the families access to the mine portal and several had already been into the mine drift in April, including Pike family representatives Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse.
Monk and the majority of the families of the 29 men have been fighting for the mine drift to be recovered and accountability for the disaster.
‘‘I am challenging the lawmakers that you cannot kill 29 men in the workplace and have no one brought to account,’’ he said.