New Zealand / West Coast

Thirteen hours of Pike River footage released by police

18:20 pm on 5 May 2017

Police have released more than 13 hours of video taken inside the Pike River Mine after some of the footage was leaked last week.

The remains of 29 miners have been trapped in the mine since it exploded in 2010, and owner Solid Energy maintains it is too dangerous to retrieve them.

Some of the footage taken inside Pike River Mine was leaked to media and family members of some of the victims of the disaster last week.

The footage released today was taken by the Western Australia Water Corporation robot, which entered the drift of the Pike River mine on 15 March 2011.

Police said this was the fourth robot entry into the drift, and was conducted by the Pike River Coal receivers six days after police handed over control of the mine.

See more footage online here.

In a statement, police said the footage was now being released after a number of requests, including Official Information Act requests, from the families and media.

"Police is currently working through the remaining aspects of these various requests, which involves a large amount of imagery and video stored in different data formats and locations.

"Police is also mindful of its privacy obligations regarding individuals who appear on many still images, as well as suppression of some material by the Royal Commission of Inquiry, before we can publicly release the remaining material held. We are working to do this as quickly as we can."

Police said excerpts of the video footage released today was played at two family meetings in 2011.

Prime Minister Bill English has said the government is committed to an unmanned re-entry into the mine, but has ruled out manned entry.