PRC Pike River Coal

[the machine]

Rabcat, the ventilation shaft is "sort of" isolated to some degree, so if this is where the explosion was located then
looking at the mine plan, an explosion at bottom of ventilation shaft would see the shaft itself take the brunt of the outward force and then the main tunnel is next.
there is no direct pathway from ventilation shaft to the coal seam and areas where roadways are planned for 4th quarter.

any "force" that went towards coalface and roadway development would be sigificantly less than what went down the main tunnel - there are corners and the roadways divide - hence spreads the 'force" out.

Any posters who have some knowledge of how outward forces would be distributed please look at the mine plan and make comment - mine plan is per page 8 of the recent presentation.

where the source of the explosion is of course unknown.

M

[minimoke]

I was saddened to hear of this incident and my heart goes out to all involved but it seems to me some are forgetting where they are. The conversation will and must move towards the Share Trading side of this tragedy. Surely both aspects can be discussed without cross contamination and without offence being given or taken?

You are right, but now is not the time. This is just one other tragedy loaded onto the already over burdened shoulders of south islanders. Even thought this is on the coast there will be people here who are one degree removed from the events and two degrees will cover most. In the last few months we've had SCF demise, the Fiordland aircrash, the earth quake and now this. You're probably not going to get a lot of rational debate on the financial aspects at the moment and nor should you. Our thoughts should be fully with the family and friends of those affected.

[Huang Chung]

Hey Fish, that is pretty bad luck and am sorry to hear it. The course of trades doesn't suggest there was too much "in the know" selling happening there

Sounds to me as if no one knew about it until the electrician stumbled across the loader driver. Is this correct?

[fish]

Sounds to me as if no one knew about it until the electrician stumbled across the loader driver. Is this correct?

Hi ,that is correct according to the statements I have heard . It doesn"t seem consistent with a large explosion that they dont know the time it occured . I am not worried about the shares I bought yesterday . My heart feels for those that dont know if someone they love is dead or alive .

[skid]

the power failed so they sent the sparky to check and thats how the alert went out

[brettdale]

Its been over 24 hours now, did the miners taken food and water with them down the mine?

[skid]

they have some sort of survival belt but i dont know if it includes much water.Youd think there would be some sort of emergency supplies

[skid]

Special 90min edition news tonight at 6pm,Ch1 and prob 3 as well

[blockhead]

Wouldn't think water would be a problem, I imagine it is dribbling down the walls all over the place

[mouse]

For those who have not visited the mine site, there is the coal preparation plant as you enter the site. Then a long road, 10kms? up to the offices, workshops etc. From there it is 2?kms to the mine portal. Which is where you enter the mine through a 2.3km tunnel.
A power failure could have been caused by an explosion, or the other way around. We do not know. My conjecture is that the electrician went up to the mine to investigate the power outage and must have seen mayhem. My conjecture is that he then phoned the offices to report the situation and very bravely entered the mine. By doing so he was able to rescue the grader driver.
Another two were able to get out via the air vent which is the one that collapsed and was repaired with a partial 600mm shaft. The three miners behind the two failed to get out. It must be very difficult for the two who escaped and I hope the media do not interview them for at least a week.
I am not at all hopeful of the rescue being successful after this amount of time, just over 24 hours. We can hope. Survival would totally depend upon where in the mine you were. Some may be lucky. We can hope so.