Pike River Coal Mine explosion in New Zealand

Posted by admin on Nov 22, 2010 at 6:56 am America/Chicago

Peter Griffin of the Science Media Centre in New Zealand has just given us a heads up that rescuers will be attempting to deploy a robot in the search for the 29 missing miners from the Pike River coal mine explosion. Our prayers are with the miners, their families, and the responders and we hope for a happy ending like at Chile. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPYV6mMfSc[/youtube] The video above is from the robot at the Crandall Canyon Utah coal mine collapse and pictures are in the media gallery. A paper summarizing a study CRASAR did for the US Mine Safety and Health Administration for all 3 types of mine robot rescue is here and give the prior deployments, advantages and limitations of robots for each. The US Mine Safety and Health Administration and its lead scientist, Dr. Jeffrey Kravitz, is the world leader in underground mine rescue deployments and CRASAR is proud to have assisted with two mine rescues. To date, there has been no known "live saves" of miners with a robot but we're hoping this is a first.