Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Plans being finalised for bringing out of bodies

Updated at 5:30 pm on 5 October 2011

Plans are being finalised for the way the recovery of bodies from the Pike River mine will be handled once the mine is finally re-entered.

Pike River Coal, under statutory management, is working on a plan to get back into the mine where 29 men died last November.

Neville Rockhouse, whose son Ben died in the mine, says the company's plans are progressing well, with risk assesment drilling now being done.

He says at the latest meeting it was determined that if bodies are found, they will be draped in a New Zealand flag and carried out by Mines Rescue.

Mr Rockhouse says planning has also begun for commemorating the anniversary of the disaster.

He says the families will visit the mine on the morning of 19 November and a minute's silence will be held in Greymouth at 3.42 in the afternoon, the time of the first explosion.

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