Could there be any chance they could be wrong?
So tragic.
All 29 people, including two Britons, trapped in a New Zealand coal mine are presumed dead after a second explosion. Rescue teams have now begun a recovery, police say.
http://www.channel4.com/news/n...s-after-second-blast
Link with video.
Police broke the news to families of those trapped after a second explosion underground ripped through the Pike River coal mine on New Zealand's South Island.
Superintendent Gary Knowles said none of the 29 workers would have survived the second explosion which was "as severe as the first blast" which trapped the miners last Friday.
There had been no contact with the workers since the incident. Britons Pete Rodger, 40, from Perthshire, and Malcolm Campbell, 25, from St Andrews, Fife, were among the men missing.
Rescue teams had been unable to go into the mine after the original incident due to high levels of toxic gases.
Recovery operation
Mr Knowles said he broke the news to the families of the victims who were "extremely distraught".
"Today there was another massive explosion underground and based on that explosion no-one would have survived. We are now in recovery mode," Mr Knowles said.
"The blast was horrific - just as severe as the first blast.
"Based on the expert advice I have been given it's our belief there would have been no survivors.
"I had to break the news to the families and they were extremely distraught."
Two workers stumbled out of the mine within hours of Friday's explosion, but there was no contact with the remaining men - 24 New Zealanders, two Australians, the two Britons and a South African.
A phone line deep inside the mine also rang unanswered.
Rescuers used a diamond-tipped drill to bore through layers of hard rock to get closer to tunnels where some of the miners were thought to be trapped.
The missing men, aged 17 to 62, carried 30 minutes of oxygen, and more fresh air was stored in the mine, along with food and water.
Officials said that provisions allowed for several days of survival.
The mine is not far from the site of one of New Zealand's worst mining disasters - an underground explosion in the state-owned Strongman Mine on January 19 1967, which killed 19 workers.
The country's worst disaster was in 1896, when 65 died in a gas explosion which also occurred in the same Pike River coal seam.
