The Pike River recovery operation yesterday reached the farthest point into the mine drift it plans to go — about 2.2km into the mine’s drift access tunnel.
Chief operating officer of the The Pike River Recovery Agency Dinghy Pattinson said forensic work in front of the roof fall — an area of the tunnel that collapsed in the explosion — had finished at about 11.30am yesterday.
“The boys and I feel pretty good to have now got as far as we can in the drift," he said. "That job has been done, and it has been done safely.“
It comes a week after the "Rocsil Plug" — a remote ventilation plug made of foam 2244m up the mine drift that kept fresh air circulating up to the point — was tunnelled through.
“We left a letter pinned to the Rocsil plug addressed to the Pike 29. We promised that work would continue on finding out what happened on 19 November 2010. And we said goodbye,” Pattinson said.
The letter read: “Today we stand very close to you … sadly with a massive rockfall preventing us going any further.
“We can’t get to you, but the cause is not over.”
Detailed forensic work will now begin at “Pit Bottom in Stone", a 600m network of tunnels which starts around 1885m up the mine drift tunnel. Mining infrastructure, including underground electrical substations, switchboards, sumps, pumps and crushers, can be found there.
The plan is to hand the site back to the Department of Conservation in June.
The Pike River Recovery Agency is expected to be wound up by the middle of this year.
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