This video is called Pike River Coal Mine Disaster New Zealand – Tribute – RIP.
From daily The Morning Star in Britain:
Inspector cuts paved way for killer gas blast
Monday 05 November 2012
by Our Foreign Desk
Health and safety cuts and bosses’ greed were to blame for a 2010 New Zealand mine disaster that killed 29 workers, an official investigation revealed today.
Conservative Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson resigned following the release of the Royal Commission report on a string of underground explosions that entombed the miners a mile from its entrance.
Investigators issued a damning assessment of now-defunct owner Pike River Coal Ltd’s conduct in the run-up to the deaths.
Bosses had ignored dozens of warnings from workers about methane gas build-up at the pit, they said.
Miners reported explosive levels on 21 separate occasions and dangerous levels on 27 more.
Health and safety breaches were the norm at the pit, with workers rigging their equipment to bypass gas sensors designed to trip when levels were unsafe.
Investigators added that mine bosses had made a “major error” by siting a ventilation fan underground, and that using water jets to cut the coal face increased the risk of methane release.
Government cuts to health and safety budgets had left only two inspectors, allowing the mine’s owners to get an operating certificate without ever being checked.
Mining union EPMU assistant national secretary Ged O’Connell branded the report “a damning indictment of New Zealand’s deregulated health and safety regime.”
“Pike River Coal Ltd should never have been allowed to operate in the way it did, and in other countries it wouldn’t have been allowed to,” he said.
“We hope the failings exposed in this report spell the end of the deregulated health and safety regime of the last 20 years.”
Mr O’Connell urged the government to act swiftly on the commission’s recommendations, which included the establishment of a new agency to focus on workplace health and safety.
“If the 29 men who lie in the mine are not to have died in vain then these recommendations must be implemented without delay and without reservation,” he said.
Pike River Coal company is not defending itself against charges of nine labour violations.
However former chief executive Peter Whittall has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges.
New Zealand mine disaster inquiry whitewashes government: here.
Related articles
- New Zealand mine disaster: methane warnings ignored (guardian.co.uk)
- Methane Warnings Ignored Before NZ Mine Disaster (npr.org)
- Pike River miners exposed to ‘unacceptable risk’ (stuff.co.nz)
- New Zealand coal mining company ignored warnings over explosion (telegraph.co.uk)
- Pike River: Safety overhaul ‘urgently needed’ (stuff.co.nz)
- Drive for coal put above Pike workers’ safety – report (radionz.co.nz)
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Judge convicts mining company
NEW ZEALAND: Judge Jane Farish has convicted a coalmining company of nine health and safety violations over a 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners.
Judge Farish found today that Pike River Coal had failed to ensure the safety of its workers.
An earlier investigation found the company ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to explosive levels in the mine, and that it was exposing miners to unacceptable risks to meet financial targets.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/131887