N Zealand remembers mine dead
NEW ZEALAND: New Zealand paused for two minutes’ silence
Thursday as a sombre remembrance service honoured 29 miners killed in a
tragedy Premier John Key said had left the nation raw and grieving.
More than 11,000 people gathered at the foothills of the Paparoa
mountain range, where the Pike River colliery is located, to mourn
before 29 tables, each bearing a miner’s helmet and mementos of the dead
men.
On a makeshift stage adorned with ferns, the national emblem, Key
said four million New Zealanders stood ready to offer sympathy and
support for the bereaved families killed in a series of explosions at
the colliery last month.
“What happened at Pike River has become a fresh, new, raw part of the
story of New Zealand,” Key told the crowd, many of whom stood weeping in
bright sunshine at Greymouth’s Omoto racetrack on the South Island’s
remote west coast.
After reading a roll call of the dead, Key and other dignitaries
including Governor-General Anand Satyanand filed past the tables bearing
tributes to the miners as a lone piper played.
He made mention of the overseas victims of the disaster two
Australians, two Britons and a South African saying they died far from
home but were now forever part of the west coast community.
“Their names will be etched alongside those of our own Kiwi sons, on
some yet-to-be-determined monument to honour and commemorate the lost
miners,” he said.
Satyanand read out some of the condolence messages that poured in
from around the globe after the miners were trapped by a November 19
explosion at the colliery then confirmed dead when another blast hit
five days later. They included expressions of sorrow from Queen
Elizabeth II, still the monarch of New Zealand, US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and leaders
from Singapore, Italy and Belgium.
The prime minister, whose own father died when he was six years old,
also offered a heartfelt message of hope to the mothers of the 13
children whose fathers died in the country’s worst mine disaster for
almost a century.
“It is a terrible thing to happen. But it doesn’t mean your children
will not go on to live happy, worthwhile xing lives,” he said. The local
Grey District mayor Tony Kokshoorn said the coal industry had extracted
high price on the west coast, citing a string of mining tragedies
through the region’s history which have claimed hundreds of lives.
Greymouth, Thursday, AFP |