Quarry site illegal, digger driver uncertified

Community salutes 56-year-old buried in rockfall as rescue switches to body recovery

Quarry boss Murray Taylor was operating his site illegally and did not hold the required certificate of competence, WorkSafe NZ has revealed.

The 56-year-old was buried beneath more than 1000 tonne of rocks when an overhanging cliff-face gave way, causing a landslide, at Heathstock Haulage quarry in North Canterbury on Monday.

Since the accident, WorkSafe NZ has revealed Mr Taylor did not hold the required certificate of competence.

It was illegal for the owner of a quarry to operate without a certificate, a WorkSafe NZ spokesman said today, and it was the quarry owners' responsibility to obtain such a certificate.

The certificate of competence was a record which showed the manager had undertaken relevant education and training, and met the requirements for safe supervision of a quarrying operation.

"It is very much a competence issue. It's not just a tick box or a licence thing - it's around competency."

He said WorkSafe NZ had only began to manage processes, and issue certificates, within the last month.

"We are going through a process of looking through the records to determine what the records show in terms of who has, who hasn't got [one].

"The bottom line here is it is the responsibility of a manager to obtain that certificate of competence."

Yesterday police announced the search for Mr Taylor, an owner of Heathstock Haulage, had become a recovery operation, after hopes of finding him alive faded.

Colin Campbell, a 73-year-old who grew up in a house on the quarry property, recalls a large slip at the site as a boy, on the opposite side to yesterday's suspected fatal rockfall.

"It's always been a dangerous game to be in," he said.

Mr Campbell spent 27 years working at the quarry, including many years as manager himself.

Last week, Mr Campbell visited the quarry and was given a look around "for old time's sake" by Mr Taylor, and his father, George.

Mr Campbell visited the spot almost exactly where the slip happened, and even at the time, he thought the overhanging rock face "didn't look all that secure to me".

The experienced quarry worker lamented the relaxing of the industry's regulations.

As quarry manager in the past, he needed to be licensed and to carry out twice weekly site safety checks.

"But the government did away with all that. They've got slack on the rules and it's basically become self-governed. It's not good enough."

Hurunui district mayor Winton Dalley said the council, which granted a lease to Mr Taylor to operate the quarry despite him not being a certified operator, said they would cooperate with any reviews into the death.

"It's clearly in the hands of WorkSafe and police at the moment, and I'm not in a position to comment in detail, but we are cooperating 100 per cent with them," he said.

"We have already provided documentation of the lease etc, and we will certainly be doing all we can to enable research into this issue to go ahead."

Mr Dalley, who has known the Taylor family for around 40 years, said it was important for reviews to identify any deficiencies in the process "because obviously nobody wants a repeat of incidents like this".

The local community is "pretty much in shock and trying to come to grips" with the death of Mr Taylor who has farmed and run haulage businesses in the district for decades.

"Our best wishes are with the family, their friends, and the community. We'll just have to work through it together."

Recovery operation enters third day

A large team of recovery experts are continuing to recover the North Canterbury digger driver buried beneath a 1500-tonne landslide.

A recovery operation is now into its third day.

It was suspended at around 7pm last night as weather deteriorated and recovery workers began to get fatigued. The team has already cleared hundreds of tonnes of rock and debris.

A further slip happened shortly after Mr Taylor's digger was crushed, and an ambulance remains on site, while geotechnical experts monitor the area for further dangers.

"Our paramount concern is the safety of those working on this recovery operation," said Inspector Corrie Parnell.

Experts from Canterbury Police, WorkSafe NZ and the NZ Fire Service were back at the quarry this morning to remove the remaining rock debris and recover Mr Taylor.

"While we hope to achieve this today we need to be mindful of the challenging conditions and dynamic environment the recovery team are working in," Mr Parnell said.

Canterbury Police and Victim Support are continuing to work with Mr Taylor's family to support them at this extremely emotional time.

"Canterbury Police would like to acknowledge the professionalism and dedication of those who have been involved in the operation since the incident on Monday morning," said Mr Parnell.

Police and WorkSafe NZ investigations are ongoing.

Members of Murray Taylor's family, including wife Jill (left) who were at the site yesterday were distraught, say police, but were able to grasp the scale of the operation. Photo / Supplied

Murray Taylor 'a great bloke'

Mr Taylor has been remembered as a great bloke after hopes of finding him alive faded yesterday.

The 56-year-old was buried beneath a 1500-tonne landslide when an overhanging cliff-face gave way at Heathstock Haulage quarry in North Canterbury on Monday.

This morning, a police spokesman said police had to halt their efforts to recover Mr Taylor's body late last night.

He said the recovery was likely to resume this morning.

Mr Taylor's digger cab had sustained a "catastrophic collapse" when the cliff fell, Mr Parnell said.

Some of the rocks that came down the cliff weighed 15 tonnes.

The Taylor family was "understandably distraught" but it was advantageous to have them on site yesterday to see the magnitude of the operation, Mr Parnell said.

Mr Taylor was a life-long North Canterbury man, living at nearby Balcairn with his wife Jill.

The family said he was a much loved husband, father, son, brother, uncle and friend.

He left for work as usual on Monday "to do a job he thoroughly enjoyed", they said.

Colin Campbell, a former boss at the limestone quarry, visited just last week "for old time's sake".

He remembers looking at the spot where the slip happened, thinking the overhanging rock-face did not look secure.

Mr Campbell said Mr Taylor was "a great fella to everybody".

"He'd help out anybody if he could. The whole family are bloody good people," he said.

There had been multiple brushes with death at the site, including one Mr Campbell had been caught in himself.

The 73-year-old man grew up in a house on the quarry property and eventually succeeded his father as the quarry manager.

On one occasion, Mr Campbell was operating a bulldozer without a protective cab when a landslip buried him almost up to his waist.

"It's always been a dangerous game to be in," he said. "I managed to free my legs and get myself out."

A Waikari local, who did not want to be named, said Mr Taylor was a decent, hard-working bloke.

When the local service station burned down in 1996, Mr Taylor brought a digger to help.

"That was the sort of guy he was," she said. "He's going to be well missed in the community."

Govt under fire over quarry safety

A new war of words has broken out between political parties over health and safety standards in the mining industry.

Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First yesterday slammed the Government for exempting the quarrying industry from safety reforms which followed the Pike River mine explosion in 2010, and urged changes in a new round of reforms.

Their comments came as emergency services attempted to reach quarry owner Murray Taylor, who has been buried by 1000 tonnes of rock at a lime quarry in North Canterbury. Two people have died at quarries so far this year.

New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell said the Government had failed to learn from the Pike River disaster, which killed 29 people in 2010. "Nothing has changed," he said.

Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway said quarries should be required to have a health and safety representative.

Green Party MP Denise Roche said quarries had a relatively high rate of deaths for a small industry. From a workforce of about 1000 people, four had died since 2010.

When health and safety rules were strengthened in the wake of the Pike River mine disaster, quarries successfully lobbied to be exempted.

A new round of health and safety reforms has stalled after a caucus revolt among right-leaning National MPs. The law changes had already been watered down to exclude businesses with fewer than 20 staff.

Mr Lees-Galloway said the committee considering the reforms should ensure quarries and other high-risk industries were made as safe as possible.

Mining
• Employees: 7300
• Deaths since 2010: 33

Quarrying
• Employees: 1200
• Deaths since 2010: 4

- (Worksafe, Department of Labour)