Pike River recovery mission 'making good progress' despite lockdown delay

June 10, 2020

The Pike River Recovery Agency boss says it's expected they will be 1000 metres in by the end of June.

Despite a seven to eight week setback due to the Covid-19 lockdown, Pike River Recovery Agency boss Dinghy Pattinson said they're "making good progress".

The team is now 745 metres into the mine, and are expecting to be 1000 metres in by the end of this month - the halfway mark. By the end of next month it's expected they'll recover a loader at 1560 metres, Mr Pattinson told TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning.

He spoke after it was revealed yesterday a robot was the first big find of the Pike River Mine re-entry effort.

The device was sent into the mine to assess damage after the disaster.

It is one of the many robots that were sent in to assess the damage in the mine, never to return following the explosion that killed 29 men on November 19, 2010.

Mr Pattinson - a miner for almost four decades, with 33 years in mines rescue - said the team is looking to recover time lost in lockdown, and they're expecting to recover a second robot today.

"There was five robots and a loader in the tunnel. The robots went in after the first explosion, so we've recovered one of those and there's a second one we can see about 12 metres in front of where we are at the moment so we should recover that second one today."

When asked by Breakfast host John Campbell if there was any footage on the robots, Mr Dinghy wouldn't comment.

"When the robots went in there is footage online, there was footage released after then the explosions so that's all I'm going to say around that," he added.

The agency’s confirmed it’s signalled to the Government the $36m allocation for the project won’t be enough.

The mine is a slight gradient up, but Mr Pattinson said the mining environment in Pike River is no different to any other mining environment.

Since it is being treated as a crime seen and dealing with evidence, though, the team is going up in 20 metre increments and working with police on site on the surface every day.

"They're guiding us through the process and we're following the procedures and the protocol that they've trained us in," Mr Pattinson said.

Whilst working in the mine, the gas levels, as well as any movement in the roof and ground is being monitored in real time to make sure it's safe.

"We've always said safety is our top priority."

"There was a lot of people for years saying this shouldn't be done, this can't be done, and as far as the re-entry goes, we're proving it can be done and we're proving it can be done safely.

"We're in 745 metres, we've got a long way to go but making real good progress at the moment."

The 170m barrier was breached for the first time since 2011.

SHARE ME

More Stories