TWO Scots families are among grieving relatives of 29 men killed in a New Zealand mine blast two years ago to have been offered fresh hope of recovering their bodies.
Global mining experts and government officials have discussed how to safely re-enter the Pike River mine after an explosion ripped through it in November 2010.
Malcolm Campbell, 25, of St Andrews, and Pete Rodger, 40, from Perthshire, were killed in the accident in November 2010 and their bodies, along with 27 others, have remained trapped.
The risk of triggering explosions has so far prevented attempts to recover their remains.
But the meeting, which included 21 mining experts from around the world, has left relatives confident they will eventually be able to hold proper funerals for their loved ones.
Bernie Monk, a spokesman for the families whose son was killed in the incident near the town of Greymouth, on the South Island, said: "We've come a long way. While it's probably going slower than the families want, we just want to do everything right.
"We're all sort of on the same page ... there are just a few items that we have to cover yet, and I think we'll eventually get there. It's just a matter of ticking all the right boxes as we go along."
He added that having experts from Australia, the UK and New Zealand all meeting for the first time proved to be very beneficial.
The parties have agreed to continue assessing two potential methods of exploring the main entry tunnel, known as the drift.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article