Labour MP questions Government's actions after latest Pike Footage

  • 11/08/2017

Labour's West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says the latest footage from the Pike River Mine raises new questions that the Government should answer.

Newshub released the footage last night. It was filmed before the second explosion in 2010 when there was still hope the 29 men could be alive.

Rescue workers can be heard saying they can see something moving inside the mine, four days after the first explosion while a rescue effort was underway.

Footage from a few months after the explosion also shows what could be a rescue mask.

Mr O'Connor said "It raises questions about whether men survived the initial blast and could have been rescued in the days before the second explosion. I find it extraordinary that the Government doesn't seem interested in the answers to those questions.

"People are starting to smell a rat. The more we learn, the more it seems the Government has kept from us. Nick Smith's disinterested reaction to this footage looks like an attempt to sweep things under the carpet, as does his go-slow approach to the re-entry plan."

Pike River Minister Nick Smith told Newshub that the video isn't as significant as it seems:

"Relitigating what might or might not have been said or seen in those very dramatic days at the time of the explosion... I'm not sure that's particularly helpful for anybody," he said on Thursday.

Newshub.