Pike River: Questions part of the grieving process

Michael Monk. Photo / Supplied

Would the miners have been deafened by the explosion? Would they have been able to hear the people trying to rescue them?

Broadcaster Maggie Barry says these are the sorts of "funny questions" that some of the families of the Pike River miners have been asking trauma counsellors - because, much like the rest of New Zealand, they're not experts on mining.

Barry lost her cousin, 23-year-old carpenter and rugby rep Michael Monk, in last week's West Coast mine disaster. She spent the week with Monk's parents, Paroa Hotel publicans Bernie and Kath, trying to help them through the painful police briefings and trauma counselling.

The trauma counsellors provided by Air New Zealand to each family were brilliant at addressing those obscure questions, she says - the sort that would nag away at the families' thoughts during long, sleepless nights.

Barry defended the way Prime Minister John Key, Pike River Coal and the police encouraged relatives to believe the men were still alive after the first blast.

"I don't think it would have been appropriate for the politicians or any of the rescue teams to have stood up and said 'in my opinion there is no hope'," she says. "I think that would have been hideous."

The family has a candle burning next to Michael's photo, she says, and would love to have his body back home.