New Zealand mine explosion: all miners believed dead after huge second blast

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A massive second explosion at the Pike River mine in New Zealand has extinguished all hope of bringing the 29 missing miners back to the surface alive.

The "enormous", blast, which took place at 2.37pm, was more violent than the first and was believed to have been caused by a large build up of methane within the mine over the past five days.

Peter Whittall, the mine chief, told a hastily convened press conference that it was "extremely unlikely" that anyone underground could have endured the force of the explosion.

Visibly upset, Mr Whittall said: "While we were hopeful that we could get some men out of the mine, it was realistic that many of them would never have come out alive.

New Zealand mine explosion: all miners believed dead after huge second blast - Telegraph
 
It seemed quite bad indeed, but before the 2nd explosion they sampled Methane at 95% saturation, so very unlikely anyone could have been alive anyway, so maybe they were spared an agonising death.

Although it does strike me odd that Police were doing the operation and not mining rescue.
 
I agree it is so odd to see the police conducting a rescue . Also it seems they had to rely on third parties for all the info they were putting out .
I was worried that the police spokesman seemed overly cautious . In retrospect I can now appreciate the need for that caution .
I was beginning to lose hope after the length of time it was taking to get a rescue crew in . The explosion more or less made it obvious that there was no hope
 
It's so wrong when people all of a sudden die because of some production process, these days machines should be exposed to risk, not humans.
 
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