Hard News: Where nature may win
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I'd also like to ask the question about the complications involved in testing methane levels on a continual basis. How is it done? Can it even be done? Are there tricks or tools that can be used to detect it even with just a moderate level of certainty? Doesn't it have a distinctive smell?
Matthew's better equipped to answer that than me; I do testing on bugs growing in test tubes or get data from geochemists testing seawater, neither of which are applicable to continuous testing and yes/no tests. I can tell you about determining exact levels, but that's something else. (In fact, I could really, really use a trace methane detector in the lab right now - it'd save me booting up the gas chromatograph every time I want to check the methanogens are growing!)
Regarding cause-of-death, *if* they died of asphyxiation and *if* the bodies weren't then damaged in the second explosion, it should be possible to tell - if I recall correctly, carbon monoxide kills by preferentially binding to red blood cells and starving the body of oxygen, so it'd be in the blood. Methane would be in the lungs, if they'd been breathing it in, and as it's toxic there'd be breakdown products. But time isn't going to make things any easier, here - most decomposition is anaerobic and the mine is still being heated by smouldering coal, and it's definitely not dry. The methane levels aren't going to affect the internal anaerobes that take over decomposition, not for a while. Once they've worked away for a while, it'll be hard to determine much of anything.
It can be possible to estimate time-of-death from the stage of microbial decomposition, but with the unusual conditions down there, it won't be easy. Plus it's relatively crude, as these things go. I honestly wouldn't hold out much hope of determining specific causes of death unless they're bleedingly obvious (i.e.: burning from explosion, trauma from falling rocks, etc), unless the bodies are recovered relatively quickly (within a week or two). With conditions the way they are - who knows if they ever *will* be recovered?
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Regarding cause-of-death, *if* they died of asphyxiation and *if* the bodies weren't then damaged in the second explosion, it should be possible to tell
I was meaning something far simpler - if they died within minutes of the first explosion, you'd be able to tell simply by where they are in the mine, ie in the places where they were known to be working at the time.
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Thanks Lucy and Matthew.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Sacha the top of upper queen street to the waterfront is about 2 km
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Except that, as we've heard, they don't actually know for certain where any of them were working. They know rough areas, but that's about it. It could be two groups, four groups, one group. I was a bit disturbed to learn that they know so little about the movement of men inside a dark, hazardous hole, TBPH, but at least they knew who was in there. So without knowing where in the mine any given man should've been, it's hard to know if they were where they were "meant" to be when they died.
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Sacha, in reply to
That's a great example. Maybe a cruise liner rather than a reporter then? :)
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Dismal Soyanz, in reply to
Ah yes. If they were found in disparate areas that suggested they were working rather than say huddled together.
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Back-of-an-envelope calculations of what 2.5km looks like.
Wellington - Railway Station along Willis St to Karo Drive.
Auckland - Queen Street from Newton Road to Customs St.That's pleasant urban stroll in those cities, but imagine that underground, pitchblack, hot, and walking in a protective suit with breathing apparatus.
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Neil Morrison, in reply to
I was a bit disturbed to learn that they know so little about the movement of men
Newmont are developing a new underground mine at Waihi using latest technology which will include optic fibre lines providing proximity information on everyone in the mine - shutting down moving machinery if anyone gets too close. That's in a gold mine though where there's not the same risks with electrics.
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Except that, as we've heard, they don't actually know for certain where any of them were working.
Not for certain, but they had a rough idea. And again, without putting too fine a point on it, felled on the spot - as both of the survivors initially were - as opposed to huddled in one or more groups near fresh air bases, would tell the story.
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Not for certain, but they had a rough idea. And again, without putting too fine a point on it, felled on the spot – as both of the survivors initially were – as opposed to huddled in one or more groups near fresh air bases, would tell the story.
Mostly. I imagine there are always going to be more specific questions - like "how long?" and "did they suffer?" which the families will want to know, and which may never be answerable.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
“how long?” and “did they suffer?”
We don’t know, but it is likely that the initial compression wave was lethal, the survivors were halfway out and the compression wave nearly killed them. A compression wave would knock them unconscious and kill them pretty much instantly, such compression waves were often the cause of death during war particularly for soldiers in heavily fortified bunkers.
My guess as to the next mostly likely causes would be asphyxiation as oxygen would have been used up in the initial explosion or if they had an oxygen source then carbon monoxide poisoning, both are reported to be painless deaths without suffering.
In short I doubt they would have suffered and I doubt they would have had much warning. But we don’t know.
However they died it is still tremendously sad for them, their families and for many other people, even those of us simply following the story in the media.
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3410,
Herald slightly misquotes, then takes it right out of context, in order to devise a clearly misleading headline.
Original quote:
"If I could go back and re-think my opening address to them I would do it a thousand times (better).
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Nice tribute in parliament to the miners today.
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Dismal Soyanz, in reply to
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."
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I have to say the pollies (both sides ) have handled this well
Although as I typed I just heard Jimmbo Anderton demanding a no risk world
So apart from him and he is always a special case they have done well
Well apart from the Labour party accidentally using it as a fund raising opportunity and I am sure that was a genuine mistake over on Red Alert
But it shows how careful you have to be in these cases -
3410,
An odd statement, IMO, from Supt. Knowles that rescue crews were crying after the second explosion because they knew that they would have been killed, had they entered. [Source: RNZ 5:00pm news]
Much more likely, surely, that they were crying - as we all were - because they knew that the men were lost.
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Adzze, in reply to
I see your false dichotomy and raise you a reductio ad absurdum.
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You've been trained to the max, you're ready & waiting to go---for days.
The terrain & the circumstances mean all especial, hard-earned skills are -in abeyance.
And then, as often happens I suspect, for highly trained rescue personnel - the whole thing blows up. If, as is reported (aue!) people cried, they're a phuquing lot morre human than I am.
I'd be out there raving -ONLY because,
everybody did what was required,
everybody did what was requested,
everybody did what they were trained for.
Can we hear a huge appreciative solid* support move
for the rescue personnel?* is there a fund we can donate to?
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Oh yes, dear Islander, indeed. I'm sure, if they had been allowed to, they would have been down there like a shot, without thinking of the risk to their own lives. Not a job I could ever do.
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Something from a little closer to home: Together alone-Crowded House
Together alone
above and beneath
we were as close
as anyone can be
now you are gone
far away from me
as is once will always be
together aloneanei ra maua (here we are together)
e piri tahi nei (in a very close embrace)
e noha tahi nei (being together)
ko maua anake (just us alone)kei runga a Rangi (Rangi the sky-father is above)
ko papa Kai raro (the earth mother is below)
e mau tonu nei (our love for one another)
kia mau tonu ra (is everlasting)Together alone
shallow and deep
holding our breath
paying death no heed
I'm still your friend
when you are in need
as is once will always be
earth and sky
moon and sea -
Dismal Soyanz, in reply to
if they had been allowed to, they would have been down there like a shot, without thinking of the risk to their own lives.
Well they would have been keen as hell but they wouldn’t be disregarding the risks. The difference being that they are trained to manage the risks they are likely to face. So they wouldn’t be going gung-ho but at a measured trot, if you get my drift.
ETA: After all, the idea is to rescue the victims, not create further dangers.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
Meanwhile, in that country that, apparently has no respect for human life or rights, they rescued their 29 miners within a day or so.
Umm, really, China is your example?
“Rescuers on Monday pulled to safety 29 people trapped in a flooded mine in southwestern China in a rare bit of good news for the country’s disaster-prone mining sector. …
… Last year 2,631 Chinese miners died in the line of work, according to official statistics, but independent labor groups say the true figure is likely to be much higher as many accidents are believed to be covered up.” (From here, emphasis added.) -
Meanwhile, in that country that, apparently has no respect for human life or rights, they rescued their 29 miners within a day or so.
You do know that flooded mines, and mines where miners are stuck because of rock falls etc are very different to bastard coal mines that can, and do, blow up without any warning do you not?
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
is there a fund we can donate to?
Yes - see here.
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