Pike River families stoic amid delay
Loved ones adamant safety is paramount in long search for answers in mine disaster
The long and winding road ends with a sign. “Thank you for returning. Kia Kaha. From the families,”
it says.
Also hanging from the Pike River Mine security gates: “Thank you Aotearoa. We couldn’t have done it without you all. Thank you.”
A bit further back, 29 white crosses stand roadside, soldierly, adorned with blue miners helmets. More crosses are spray painted on the tarmac to remember the 29 men who drove to work here, on the morning of Friday, November 19, 2010 and never came home.
It’s been a long, emotional journey for the families left behind. They were almost there.
Today, a crack team of three miners were to enter the mine’s portal to find out just what happened at the coal mine deep in the rugged, green hills of Paparoa Ranges, 46km northeast of Greymouth.
But on Wednesday, the re-entry team discovered “unexpected and unexplained” oxygen readings from “borehole 51”, some 2.3km into the mine — around where the roof collapsed in the 2010 explosions. The re-entry was delayed.
“It’s extremely frustrating, even after 81⁄2 years,” sighed Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn.
“Everyone’s looking for closure. They need to get on with it.”
A local shopkeeper, said: “It just feels like another kick in the guts.”
Sonya Rockhouse, whose son Ben died in the disaster, showed a typically stoic West Coast outlook.
“It’s just a blip. We’ve had worse than this to deal with,” says Rockhouse, whose other son Daniel survived the blast, and who’s campaigned tirelessly to re-enter the mine and try to hold someone accountable for the disaster, battling all the way to the Supreme Court.
“We’ve always maintained that safety is our highest priority. We wouldn’t want anybody . . . God, I wouldn’t want that on my conscience, ever.”
Reminders of the tragedy are everywhere in Greymouth.
A stunning and beautifully crafted statue stands on the town’s floodwall: “In memory of those lost in coal mining incidents within the West Coast Inspection District.”
In Maggie’s Kitchen cafe on Mackay St, a poem crafted by a visiting diner in the days after the tragedy pays tribute to the lost men.
Yesterday, the re-entry plans were the chat of the barbershop.
“What are they actually going to achieve tomorrow?”
“Didn’t the evidence go up the chimney?”
“They’re not spending this much money for nothing.”
Anna Osborne, chairwoman for the Pike River Family Reference Group, whose husband Milton died in the tragedy, sent an email to the families before the media announcement, telling them of the delay.
Like her friend Rockhouse, she wasn’t
downcast either. Slightly disappointed, yes, but once the issues have been dealt with, she says, “it will be back on”.
Osborne said Pike River mine bosses had “played Russian roulette with the men” and the Pike River Recovery Agency won’t be doing that.
“This is only a hiccup. They are working very hard to correct this.”
She is almost positive the re-entry will go ahead soon, but only when everyone is safe.
Today, a service at the mine’s eerie entrance into the Paparoa Ranges mountainside will still go ahead, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expected to attend with several families, some travelling from overseas.
They will drive from Greymouth,
past the bronze memorial to the 65 coal miners killed in the 1896 Brunner disaster, past the turnoff to Blackball — birthplace of the New Zealand Labour Party following the 1908 miners “cribtime” strike, past the Pike River memorial garden at Atarau, and up into the cloud-wrapped hills and those Pike River Mine gates.
“Thank you for returning. Kia Kaha. From the families.”