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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Pike River Mine Disaster


Flags are flying at half mast in New Zealand today as the nation reels from the tragedy in the Pike River Coal Mine, which claimed the lives of 29 men.

2 comments:

Rick said...

but of course these people knew the dangers and were paid accordingly - where else can a 17 year old with no skills can start a job on $67K. In addition to life insurance etc.
Other members of the public lose their lives on the road or in workplace accidents without this staggering outpouring of collective guilt/sadness.
They didnt have to take the jobs and could have gone elsewhere. Life/Death is all about choices.

Yvonne Eve Walus said...

Rick, when 96 people died in April this year in the aeroplane carrying the Polish president and his wife, as well as many top political figures, the entire Poland went into mourning for a week, regardless of whether they'd voted for pr agreed with the party policies of that president.

96 people die in an air crash, and the world takes notice. Compare that to 30,000 people who die in car crashes in Poland every year. That's 30,000 people nobody knows about.

The point is, aeroplane accidents make the news while car accidents don't. Mine disasters make the news. In the case of Pike River mine, it was a small community that lost 29 men in a mysterious accident that may have been preventable. Their loss touched us, particularly as it came riding on the back of the success story in Chile.