Hard News: Where nature may win
523 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 16 17 18 19 20 21 Newer→ Last
-
I agree there seems much that needs asking. I understand your anger and frustration and I may be the only one that thinks your venting is a little closer to home than some here may realise.
I don't think you're alone in detecting the occasional suggestion of a valid point amongst the general barfly fugue tone of James's "venting". If you're able to tease these out from the highly resistable "I'm exceptional, you individualist worms" preening, then you're doing better than I'm able to manage.
-
where does the “1 hour 50 minutes” come from?
Yesterday's article on the possibility of an early rescue had that timeline - I think it's linked to upthread.
-
didn’t one the two survivors raise the alarm from within the mine on a phone that worked and didn’t the above-ground staff know straight away that the monitoring links went down?
seems the 1 hr 60 min til they knew is a bit of a myth.
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
another kiwi trick have 5 inquiries instead of one
Some of these various inquiries are required by law. OSH must investigate, by law, because people died. The Coroner must rule the men dead, and last I saw hadn't decided if there was going to be an inquest. These things cannot be combined, because their statutorily-required outcomes are not the same. OSH is not competent to declare people dead, and the Coroner is not competent to determine breaches of the HSEA.
The Commission of Inquiry isn't legally required, but it would be foolish for one not to be held given the nature of what's happened. It, again, cannot be combined with the other two because their statutory purposes are different. What're the other two inquiries to which you refer?
-
Andre Alessi, in reply to
I remember reading in one of the early articles that SOP for the mine was to wait one hour from the time contact was lost with workers before emergency services were notified (I'd imagine losing contact wouldn't be all that uncommon, relatively speaking, given the conditions.)
Stuff has a timeline, but they haven't updated it for a few days.
-
I'm not sure if this link has made it into this thread yet - a bit of science
http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2010/11/24/afterdamp-in-new-zealand/ -
Here's some more people who, whilst not pre-empting the inquests to come, cast some serious doubts on the safety of the operation ("either the warning system was inadequate, or it was not sufficiently monitored"). I thought the final quote was telling:
"The international mining community should band together to make sure safety standards are good for New Zealand miners"
-
And... pretty ferocious this from the resident Herald cartoonist.
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
Zing, and double zing. That's brutal in its truthiness, but needs to be plastered large on a wall in every home, office, factory and school in the country.
I know I've pontificated somewhat large on this incident, but I have tried very hard to keep within the realms of what I know through direct experience and education. -
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
And... pretty ferocious this from the resident Herald cartoonist.
Ouch. The irony. It burns.
-
BenWilson, in reply to
Your pontifications have been appreciated, much more enlightening than what I've gleaned from the MSM.
-
I won't bother to respond to the usual raft of insults or as these blogger types like to call em 'ad hominems' but I have to disagree with Brown's statement that the Cave Creek Commission was other than what the Govt wanted.
There was no way the Government was going to get away with a complete whitewash on that one, there were far too many 'ordinary kiwis of standing' in their local community who lost children, to get off scot free. As Brown may recall from the response of those parents when the report was finally released, the anger from those parents at the weak kneed report was palable.
Cave Creek went to the heart of exactly how wrong-headed and greedy the government had been in so much of its policy.
The resignation of an average minister is nothing, That happens over a couple of airfares, Cave Creek occurred because of a series of decisions made by that government - from deregulating building permits and inspections to forcing government departments to adopt a quantitatively based cost accounting on every action, including those functions that should be measured qualitatively.
Decisions that were at the heart of everything that government had done, yet the report avoided addressing those issues, just as the inquiry 'duck-shoved' the issue of prosecutions between itself and the inquest.
The same will happen now. Key has already been talking about 'the need' for more than one inquiry (enquiry/inquiry I always get that wrong) but that a Royal Commission is not needed.
I imagine we will have a Mines Department bureuacrat produce a quick inventory of a comparison of mining regulations in say, Oz states and here. It will be crafted to obscure rather than enlighten, so that will be another 'inquiry'. Plus we are bound to see some sort of attack on the environmental issues surrounding Pike River. If the govt can't or doesn't want to open the Pike River Commission up too far in case it spins out of control, then there will almost certainly be another body tasked with considering 'the impact of the lengthy and expensive (their terms not neccessarily what I believe) Resource Consent process on Occupational Health and Safety issues.
I could go on but I don't wanna give the pr1cks ideas.
I have no wish to slander anyone and ensure that this post is pulled but apart from the fact most of those who responded missed a couple of the big issues I mentioned which most likely contributed to creating the ideal situation for a methane explosion, I will re-iterate that in a nation which cared about all its citizens and not just the rich and powerful, those individuals who willingly ignored safety in order to get the coal out faster and cheaper, would be prosecuted.
I have no doubt whatsoever that some of the decision makers at the Pike River Mine did exactly that, but I am also certain that few if any will be prosecuted.
-
I just heard Gary McCormick's poem for Joseph Dunbar. What a beautiful gift for a devastated family.
-
Sacha, in reply to
I may be the only one that thinks your venting is a little closer to home than some here may realise.
It's mainly the timing and the tone I have a problem with. I accept there are questions to be answered about what happened. Just not here where most of us know so little about it.
-
3410,
I just heard Gary McCormick's poem for Joseph Dunbar. What a beautiful gift for a devastated family.
link.
-
didn’t one the two survivors raise the alarm from within the mine on a phone that worked and didn’t the above-ground staff know straight away that the monitoring links went down?
seems the 1 hr 60 min til they knew is a bit of a myth.
The impression I got from the interview with one of the survivors in the paper last Saturday (if my recollection is correct?) was that they got out of the shaft, and then had to walk down the track through bush to raise the alarm from a location somewhere fairly far from the mine itself. And that that communication/alarm was the first inkling that anyone outside the mine had that there might be a problem. The two hours was the time it took them to get from the mine to the phone.
Which if correct (and I’m relying on my memory of an article I skim-read a week ago) does raise some questions about the lack of communication and ongoing monitoring. Which will hopefully be asked an answered at the inquiriy.
-
SteveH, in reply to
The impression I got from the interview with one of the survivors in the paper last Saturday (if my recollection is correct?) was that they got out of the shaft, and then had to walk down the track through bush to raise the alarm from a location somewhere fairly far from the mine itself. And that that communication/alarm was the first inkling that anyone outside the mine had that there might be a problem. The two hours was the time it took them to get from the mine to the phone.
I think it did take two hours for the two miners who climbed out to make contact but that was not the first report of the explosion. The explosion happened at about 3:30pm. According Stuff's timeline first reports were received about 3:45pm, though emergency services didn't start to respond for another hour. This report from 3 News says the same.
-
Jackie Clark, in reply to
thanks V
-
Brent Jackson, in reply to
Rick Lock wrote :
The two hours was the time it took them to get from the mine to the phone.
From the herald story here :
"I got out of my machine and all of a sudden I heard what seemed to be a shotgun blast but much, much louder and more powerful."
White light flashed down the main roadway, and the force of the explosion blew Daniel off his feet, smashing his head against the rock wall.
...
"I got up and there was thick white smoke everywhere - worse than a fire. I knew straight away that it was carbon monoxide."
...
In panic, Daniel began running away from the smoke into a dead-end area of the mine."Then I realised, 'If I stay here, I'm done for'. So I turned around back into the smoke. I couldn't see anything, and it was dead quiet."
Daniel took a deep breath - mostly of carbon monoxide - and ran into the main roadway of the mine.
"I yelled, 'Help, somebody help me!' But no one came. There was no one there."
His nose running and eyes watering uncontrollably, Daniel became disoriented and dizzy. He got a few metres into the roadway and collapsed.
...
I lost consciousness for I don't know how long."Just as it seemed all hope was lost, Daniel came to again.
"I started wiggling my fingers and toes. After a minute, I managed to stick my arm in the air, but it fell back down."
Daniel knew he had carbon monoxide poisoning, which causes a loss of mobility. "I lay down and closed my eyes and waited for that bright light. But then I managed to roll over on to my stomach and tried to get up. I screamed at myself, 'Daniel, get up! Get the f*** up!"'
With enormous effort, he dragged himself to his feet and staggered to a nearby compressed air line. He turned it on and was able to breathe in fresh air, regaining some strength.
Daniel followed pipes along the rock wall to a nearby phone. He spoke to mine manager Doug White, who told him to go to the fresh-air base near the mine portal.
"He said, 'It's okay mate, we're waiting for you. Hurry up'."
Feeling "drunk" from the carbon monoxide, on weak legs Daniel followed the pipe for another 200m and came across another loader.
"I found a man lying down, semi-conscious. I grabbed his hair and pulled his head back, and realised it was Russell Smith."
...
Daniel grabbed Russell under the armpits and began dragging him the 500m to the fresh-air base. Halfway there, he stopped and looked back."I waited for more lights coming my way, but nothing came. I did think about going down there, but I thought I wouldn't come back if I went down there."
As he approached the base, Daniel felt a spark of hope for the first time. Though he was exhausted, the air was clearer and he could breathe easier.
But when the two men reached the base, he found somebody had left the door open and it, too, was filled with poisonous gas. The only phone was not working.
"I said, 'You've got to be bloody kidding me!' I screamed and kicked the wooden seats. I came back out and said to Russell, 'F*** this, we're getting out of here'."
The two were able to breathe some fresh air from compressed air lines along the way. Eventually, Russell's condition improved and Daniel was able to help him to his feet.
"I put my arm around his shoulders and held on to him as hard as I could, and we hobbled for the next kilometre.
"All the way down I was saying to Russell, 'We're gonna make this, mate. Think about your wife, think about your kid - I know I am'."
About 300m from the entrance, they saw light.
"I've never felt so happy and so relieved," Daniel said.
Again he looked for lights behind him, but saw none.
"I said to Russell, 'I don't think anyone else is coming'."
After an agonising two-hour struggle, Daniel finally emerged from the mine with Russell.
Within a minute, the area was flooded with paramedics and mine staff, including Daniel's father Neville Rockhouse, who is Pike River's safety and training manager.
So it is pretty clear that :
A) the shift controller knew about the explosion fairly soon after it happened; and
B) the survivors did not see anyone else following them out.The media mistakenly reported there were two other survivors heading out, but that was due to confusion, and was most probably a reference to the two survivors.
You have to remember how useless the entertainment industry, that purports to be out news information service, is at posting factual comment. It is only quoted information that you should rely on.
-
So it is pretty clear that :
A) the shift controller knew about the explosion fairly soon after it happened;Yesterday's Herald article, which I've now located, makes the following claim:
After the blast at 3.50pm, the alarm was not raised for roughly two hours - the time it took for Daniel Rockhouse and Russell Smith to walk 2km out of the carbon monoxide-filled tunnel and alert emergency services.
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
Gio, that’s nice and all, but it doesn’t add up.
Explosion’s accepted time of occurrence is 15:45, give or take. Stuff’s timeline, linked above, puts emergency services responding at 16:53 – that time will be from dispatch logs. That’s not two hours after the explosion, and is an hour-ish before reports start to circulate that a couple of men have exited the mine.
[ETA: The 16:53 response time also fits with reports that it was SOP to wait an hour from loss of communication before alerting emergency services.]So will you accept that the Herald has it wrong? Or insist that the survivor account is wrong, the accepted time of the explosion is wrong, and that the emergency services’ computerised dispatch logs are wrong? Because they’re not compatible scenarios.
-
I agree that they're not compatible scenarios but I wouldn't necessarily credit one of them as being the definitive truth at this point. It will be one of the first thing that the inquiry will try to determine I'd imagine.
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
Will you accept a response time by the emergency services of 16:53? Such precision will have come from the dispatch system used by the Fire Service and Police, and wouldn't be available to the media from any other source (except decoding of paging messages to the area's volunteer fire brigades).
If you accept that, then unless you dispute an explosion time of around 15:45 it's impossible for the Herald's stated "two hours" to be remotely accurate. Even if the survivor's account is wrong on timing, which is entirely possible, the claim that it took two hours to alert emergency services and that it was done by the guys who made it out of the mine doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
-
I have no doubt whatsoever that some of the decision makers at the Pike River Mine did exactly that, but I am also certain that few if any will be prosecuted.
You may not have doubt, but you don't have knowledge, which also requires that what you believe also be true and justified. This is especially so for your statements regarding the future, whose truth status is in considerable doubt even at a philosophical level, let alone a practical one. For all you know, without most of the facts, the reverse of both beliefs could be true, that none of the 'decision makers' ignored safety, and some of them will be prosecuted anyway.
It's entirely possible that human error on the part of the miners led to this tragedy. That is often the cause in accidents, and it is impossible to prevent even with the highest levels of engineering. Maybe someone along the chain forgot to do some vital task, like close a door, or do a routine check. The scene has not been gone over with anything like a fine-tooth comb because it's not safe yet.
-
Will you accept a response time by the emergency services of 16:53?
I'm happy to accept that - it's still over an hour though. I wonder exactly which timeline the British mining rescue experts who basically damned the operation today were given by the Herald.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.