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New Zealand mine rescue stalled as hopes fade

23 November 2010 02:24 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Efforts to rescue 29 men trapped in a New Zealand coal mine stalled for a third day on Monday, with authorities fearing the colliery is a powder keg of explosive gases and relatives praying for a miracle, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
The agonizing wait for an all-clear to enter the mine was etched on the faces of rescue officials as they told reporters that teams were now unlikely to be allowed into the mine until Tuesday, four days after an explosion tore through it.
For the first time since the blast on Friday, officials spoke openly about the possibility that men might have died in the explosion, which experts say would have sent a searing fireball through the mine, leaving a smoldering cocktail of toxic gases.
"Everyone is on tenterhooks and there is exhaustion everywhere. Tempers are frayed. We are going into a fourth day and it is gut-wrenching," local mayor Tony Kokshoorn said.
There has been no contact with the miners since the explosion at the Pike River mine, which is dug horizontally into a mountain range on the rugged west coast of New Zealand’s South Island.
Officials say it is possible the men could have found a pocket of clean air, and be huddling around it until help arrives, but it is unclear if they have enough food and water, beyond what they would have carried in with them for their shift.
The men’s initial emergency oxygen supplies would have lasted only up to an hour or so.
It is expected to be at least another 12 hours before air-quality tests from a new drill hole, which is close to completion, can provide more information about conditions in the mine, with a robot being readied to enter the main shaft.
The robot cannot enter if there is a risk that its electronics will set off another explosion in the mine.
"Tests should be starting to tell us something by tomorrow and until someone tells us there is no hope, then there is heaps of it," mayor Kokshoorn told reporters, as school children tied yellow ribbons, representing hope, to lamp posts around the nearby town of Greymouth.
ANGER & FRUSTRATION BUILDING
Anger and frustration has been mounting over the stalled rescue, with authorities being questioned over the preparedness of a mining industry thought to be among the most safety-conscious in the world to cope with such a disaster.
"Everybody’s frustrated, everybody’s upset, everyone’s hurting," said Laurie Drew, whose 21-year-old son, Zen, is among the trapped men. But he added: "We’ve got faith that they’re going to come out."
Drilling of a 15 cm-diameter (six inch-diameter) shaft on a steep hillside above the mine has reached about 140 meters of the estimated 162 meter depth to the main mine shaft.
Cameras, listening devices and air testing devices will be lowered into the hole, in addition to other air quality tests which are being conducted every 30 minutes to determine whether the levels of methane are falling.
Special equipment to measure and analyze gas levels has also been flown in from Australia, and seismic equipment was also to be used to search for any signs of life.
The disaster follows the ordeal of 33 Chilean miners trapped in an underground chamber for two months before their dramatic rescue last month, when they were hoisted one by one to safety through a hole drilled 700 meters through rock.
In China, whose coal mines are considered the world’s deadliest, rescuers on Monday pulled out alive 29 miners who had been trapped underground by a flood in the country’s southwest, in a rare piece of good news for the industry.
New Zealanders prayed for a similar miracle.
The trapped miners at Pike River range in age from 17 to 62 and include two Britons, two Australians and a South African. Two men escaped from the mine after the blast with moderate injuries.
The isolated mine has been dug about 2.3 km (1.4 miles) into a mountain range, with the trapped men believed to be most of the way inside. There are ventilation shafts climbing vertically at least 100 meters to the surface to provide fresh air, and a compressed air line is still being pumped in.