Coal on the Coast

Rescue workers at The Strongman, 1967. File photo / NZ Herald

The history of coal mining on the West Coast has been one of spilled blood.

With 29 men trapped underground near Greymouth, their fate unknown, Coast historian Brian Wood says mining is in the region's blood, despite the flow of history away from such a "hazardous" industry.

It was down the thin strip of rock between the Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea that rough, tough men from all over the world came to try their luck - for seals, for cold, for timber, for coal ...

The first major commercial coal mine was started in 1864 on the Grey River, and it expanded shoulder-to-shoulder with New Zealand's growing population through the turn of the century.

The men there mined the same seam - the Brunner - as the Pike River mine that was rocked by an explosion on Friday afternoon.

The coal from the first mine, and others that soon sprouted all over the West Coast, was sent throughout New Zealand.

"It was all domestic demand back then," Wood says. "It was the principal means of heating. The coal mined would be delivered to everyone's back sheds for heating in the fireplace or feeding into ovens to bake scones."

It was on the Coast that New Zealand's fledgling Labour movement took shape. Led by Peter Fraser, the unionists objected to conscription in World War I, an "Imperial War" that they believed was not their fight.

In 1916, miners at Blackball on the West Coast walked out on strike against conscription, demanding repeal of the Military Service Act and a pay rise. When their leaders were arrested six months later, miners up and down the Coast walked out.

To this day, photos of New Zealand's first Labour prime ministers, Michael J. Savage and Peter Fraser, hang above West Coast mantelpieces.

Through the 1950s, the industry was fundamental to New Zealand's development. But its fortunes plummeted in following decades as cheap oil flooded the country.

"You would have to call it a depressed region, with unemployment and a declining population," Wood says.

It came back to life in the 1990s on the back of tourism and exporting coal to Asian foundries.

But Friday's disaster has put a dent in the region's confidence in mining - though Wood says it is far from the first time this has happened.

The Strongman mine disaster in 1967, in which 19 miners were killed, made families uneasy about letting their men back into the mines, leading to a labour shortage.

In fact, the entire history of coal mining is littered with deadly accidents. "It's a hazardous industry," says Wood.

Although the explosions that kill many miners at once have gripped imaginations, studies have shown that 80 per cent of mining deaths happen in individual accidents, steadily recurring year after year.

Falling coal and rock was the most common cause, and haulage accidents, involving the movement of coal underground, were also a killer.

It was too early to tell what impact the Pike River disaster would have on coal mining's future, he said.

Tourism was already overtaking mining as the sustainable future for the West Coast, even if it would take some time for locals to accept it, he said. "It's in the blood of the coal mining fraternity. There's an attachment. It's a family tradition to become a miner."

And as long as coal was in the ground, and there was money to be made, it was unlikely to go away, he said.

"Coal mining will continue as long as the resources are there and the prices are right."