Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Families frustrated at lack of progress at mine

Updated at 5:52 pm on 31 October 2011

The families of the men killed at Pike River mine say they are becoming very frustrated at the lack of progress at the mine.

Memorials are being planned in Greymouth to mark the first anniversary of the explosions at the West Coast coal mine which killed 29 workers.

Grey district mayor Tony Kokshoorn says it is not good enough that no-one has gone further into the mine than 170 metres in almost 12 months.

Secretary of the Pike River families committee Carol Rose says families have heard a lot of promises but they have come to nothing.

She says 29 men went to work and didn't come home but so far there didn't seem to have been a lot of people who cared about that. "It's all politics - families are over it really," she says.

Statutory manager for the mine, Steve Ellis, says work is continuing to seal the mine at the end of its entry tunnel 2.3 kms in and to have crews go right to the end by Christmas

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