NZ
mine disaster 'preventable'
NEW
Zealand's Pike River mine tragedy that killed 29 men almost two years
ago was ''preventable'' and caused by poor company management and
ineffective regulation, according to a report on the disaster.
6
November, 2012
Pike River Coal Ltd, the mine's owner, lacked the systems and infrastructure necessary to safely produce coal, the royal commission that investigated the tragedy said in its report released on Monday. Ventilation and methane drainage systems were insufficient and ''numerous'' warnings of methane build-up to explosive volumes weren't heeded, it said.
The
29 men died after a blast on November 19, 2010, at the mine near
Greymouth in the West Coast region of the South Island. It was the
nation's biggest mining accident since 1914 when 43 died in a North
Island mine. The Pike River workers were trapped and probably died in
the first explosion, while blasts over the following five days
frustrated efforts to reach the men, and their bodies remain inside
the mine.
''In
relation to underground coalmining, New Zealand has had a tragedy
every generation or so, after the lessons of previous tragedies have
been forgotten,'' the commission said in the report. ''This time the
lessons must be remembered. That would be the best way to show
respect for the 29 men who never returned home.''
The
Department of Labour, which oversees the industry, ''didn't have
focus, capacity or strategies to ensure that Pike was meeting its
legal responsibilities under health and safety laws,'' the commission
said. The Department should have stopped Pike from operating the
mine, it added. Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson resigned after the
report's release.
''On
behalf of the government, I apologise to the families, friends and
loved ones of the deceased men for the role this lack of regulatory
effectiveness played in the tragedy,'' Prime Minister John Key said
in a statement after the report was released.
For
five days, families and friends had kept a vigil for the miners,
ranging from a 17-year-old on his first day in the mine to a
62-year-old near retirement. Their plight had prompted hope of a
recovery effort akin to the October 2010 rescue of 33 men trapped in
a shaft below the Atacama Desert in Chile for 70 days.
The
government should create a new regulator with a sole focus on health
and safety across all industries, the commission said in the report.
It recommends updated mining regulations and improvements to
emergency incident management.
''The
drive for coal production before the mine was ready created the
circumstances within which the tragedy has occurred,'' the report
said. ''Directors and executive managers paid insufficient attention
to health and safety and exposed the company's workers to
unacceptable risks. Mining should have stopped until the risks could
be properly managed.''
Pike
River Coal went into receivership because it could not pay its debts,
and in May this year the administrators agreed to sell the assets to
state-owned Solid Energy New Zealand. The new owner told the families
of the dead miners that there was no safe way of extracting the
bodies.
Last
month, former Pike River chief executive Peter Whittall pleaded not
guilty to 12 charges of failing to comply with the Health and Safety
in Employment Act, brought by the Labour Department.
The
three-man commission was headed by Justice Graham Panckhurst, a High
Court judge based in Christchurch. It held hearings from mid-2011.
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