Management approachable, Pike River says

The entrance to the Pike River Coal mine. Photo / Simon Baker

The chairman of Pike River Coal has rejected accusations the company was not approachable for workers who had safety concerns prior to a series of blasts in which 29 workers died.

Former Pike river miner Brent Forrester lost his friend Riki Keane in the mine. He told TVNZ's Sunday programme - which aired last night - the tragedy was "100 per cent preventable".

"In these days and times mines don't blow up under professional guidance," Mr Forrester said.

"This was totally preventable, in my opinion, and there were signs of bad ventilation, there's evidence of it, through different texts miners have made, through comments they've made leading up to the explosion.

"There have been gas issues there have been ventilation issues. Did management even know about it, were they even told? I don't know."

He said he believed there were inadequate methane sensors and ventilation systems in place in the mine.

Mr Forrester, who began working at the mine in 2008, said his first impression was the mine had high safety standards, however he became concerned when safety issues brought up by workers were not addressed by miners.

"I believe there was very much and 'us and them' relationship between management and workers."

He told Sunday Mr Keane had the same concerns as he did, and was even involved in a walkout of around 10 miners during a shift following concerns about the lack of an emergency transport vehicle underground, the distance between the workers and the fresh air bases, and insufficient first aid supplies.

Management told the workers after the walkout they should have voiced their concerns with them.

"I never felt they were approachable, none of the guys thought they were ever approachable when it came to issues."

Pike River chairman John Dow agreed the accident was preventable, but said safety concerns were not raised with management.

Mr Dow told Radio New Zealand the mine was "absolutely" a workplace where workers could approach management and know their concerns would be acted on.

"Safety is a cornerstone of everything we do. We've always said if you can't do something safely it's not worth doing," Mr Dow said.

"Pike isn't retreating into any corner. We've said right from the beginning that we wanted to get to the bottom of this.

"It is very important we understand what happened and get some answers to these questions."

The national secretary of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, Andrew Little, said immediately after the incident people did not voice any concerns about the mine but a number of concerns had since been expressed about safety.

Mr Little encouraged his members who had concerns to bring them to the attention of the Department of Labour, police and the Royal Inquiry into the tragedy.

He would not say whether there were safety issues in the mine, saying he looked forward to findings of the inquiries.

"I think Brent Forrester's comments on the Sunday programme are very credible. They are consistent with things I've heard."

Mr Little said there appeared to be "a culture around Pike River of having concerns but being fearful about raising them."

On Sunday, Mr Forrester also criticised the mine operators for not knowing exactly where the miners were working in the mine.

"There's a lot of families, there's a lot of kids without dads now, I've lost a very good friend of mine, we've been friends for years, and I'm absolutely gutted.

"And I'm just as interested as everyone else to find out what happened down there."