Camera shows no life in NZ mine refuge

There is no sign of life in a refuge inside a New Zealand coal mine where a methane
explosion five days ago trapped 29 men, two of them Australian.
A camera was sent down a 60cm shaft at the Pike River Coal mine on Tuesday, peeking
into a pocket of fresh air where miners could retreat in an emergency.
The vision revealed some minor carnage, but nothing else, Pike River Coal CEO Peter
Whittall told reporters on Tuesday.
"There was no one there, there was no sign of any person in the area," he said.
There has been no communication with the men trapped underground since a methane
blast ripped through the remote South Island mine, near Greymouth.
The police officer in charge of the rescue, Superintendent Gary Knowles, said
anxiety was mounting as toxic gas levels continued to stop authorities from sending
crews into the mountainside mine, five days after the blast.
"We continue to plan for the rescue. However, we are aware that the likelihood of
this occurring is diminishing and we have to be frank about the situation,"
Superintendent Knowles told reporters on Tuesday.
"The risk of secondary explosion is real, and there's a great risk.
"We're not prepared to put other staff underground and put their lives in danger.
"The situation is bleak, it is grey."
New Zealand Police Commissioner Howard Broad said: "The situation is bleak and gets
bleaker by the hour, by the day".
Frustrated family members were shown a sobering 52-second video of the powerful
blast captured at the entry to the coal mine, when it blew up last Friday trapping
the men, mostly locals, in the horizontal tunnel.
The hazy CCTV footage shows grey stone dust blowing out of the mine and a metal
sheet violently flapping as the blast occurs at least 2.5km in to the shaft.
"It's certainly a strong piece of information for me because it shows that the blast
was quite large and it went on for a long time," Mr Whittall said.
However, the CEO said he was determined to remain optimistic.
"What sustains my hope ... is the survival or otherwise of a blast of that nature
depends on where you are and what structure you're behind or where you're standing,"
he said.
"We still have a compressed air line going underground.
"I think it's becoming obvious that we may not be 29 guys all sitting together,
waiting to be rescued.
"How many of them there are, I don't know. But those are the ones we need to rescue,
and those are the ones I'm waiting to see."
Another NZ Defence robot arrived at the remote mine on Tuesday afternoon, after the
first military-use machine broke down just 500 metres into its early morning
mission.
Another couple of robots were due to arrive from Western Australia and the US later
in the week.
Additional equipment from Australia was being sent via chopper to the scene and
additional staff from NSW had arrived.
A tube to allow more efficient testing of gas levels in the mine was rigged up on
Tuesday, and crews were searching for another drilling point in the rugged terrain.
Attempts to drill a 162-metre shaft into the mine were hampered on Tuesday as hard
rocky layers slowed the process and a motor had to be repaired.
But Mr Whittall hopes to use a diamond-head drill to bore through the remaining 10
metres into the tunnel by late on Tuesday evening.
On Wednesday morning, family will be briefed on progress made overnight and a formal
media conference will follow.



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