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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks That'd be.

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Speaker 2: I flew to Graymouth the morning after Pike River first blew.

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Speaker 2: I was there in and out for several weeks, and

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Speaker 2: I keenly remember those first few days of waiting. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: like those first few days of hope, you know, checking

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Speaker 2: our phones and checking our phones and checking our phones.

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Speaker 2: It's a cliche, I know, but time moves so slowly

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Speaker 2: when you're watching a clock, and that's what I remember.

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Speaker 2: I remember the calculations, how much air might there be,

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Speaker 2: how much water could they have, how much food? I

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Speaker 2: remember the international media pouring into Graymouth. And I remember

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Speaker 2: the despair on the Wednesday afternoon when the families were

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Speaker 2: called in for an update. The mine had blown again

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Speaker 2: and the men were all dead. One of the great

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Speaker 2: privileges of being a journalist and being a reporter is

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Speaker 2: that you get to meet heaps of interesting people, and

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Speaker 2: you get to experience heaps of different things. And I've

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Speaker 2: certainly had more than my fair fhear of goind to

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Speaker 2: pinch myself moments over the years, you know. But for

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Speaker 2: all the elections and Olympics and Donald Trump rallies, that

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Speaker 2: I've been lucky enough to attend. One of the most

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Speaker 2: memorable afternoons of my life was the afternoon of the

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Speaker 2: Pike River Memorial and you might recall it from back

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Speaker 2: in twenty ten, so it was less than a fortnight

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Speaker 2: after the men went missing. They had this big public

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Speaker 2: event at a race course just out of town in Greymouth.

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Speaker 2: But instead of going, I decided to stay the afternoon

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Speaker 2: in Graymouth. And I've never experienced anything like it.

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Speaker 1: It was.

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Speaker 2: Empty, empty, like hauntingly empty. Not a car, not an

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Speaker 2: open shop, not a soul. You could walk down the

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Speaker 2: painted line in the middle of the main road because

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Speaker 2: there was no one. Everyone was gone, because in a sense,

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Speaker 2: a piece of everyone was gone. The loss was absolute.

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Speaker 2: The whole thing still seems a bit surreal to me.

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Speaker 2: I mean, mining has obviously never been the safest industry,

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Speaker 2: and the coast has more than its share of tragic

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Speaker 2: history hidden in its magnificent bush covered valleys, But that

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Speaker 2: almost every player on a rugby pitch could go in

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Speaker 2: for a shift and then never come home in modern

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Speaker 2: New Zealand, that's still shocking to me. I watched Pike

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Speaker 2: River the film this week. I found it very affecting.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting to note that director Rob Saki's also directed

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Speaker 2: Out of the Blue, the film about Adam Wuana. He

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Speaker 2: waited sixteen years after the massacre to make and release

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Speaker 2: that film, and he's waited almost as long for Pike River.

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Speaker 2: He's really got a knack for sensitively telling some of

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Speaker 2: the most painful but important modern New Zealand stories. But

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Speaker 2: there's a big and obvious difference between Out of the

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Speaker 2: Blue and Pike River. The Pike River story still isn't over.

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Speaker 2: Police and the Crown Solicitor are still deciding whether to

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Speaker 2: lay criminal charges after all of those days, waiting to

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Speaker 2: see if their boys might have somehow survived all of

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Speaker 2: those weeks and then months and then years, to see

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Speaker 2: if the mind could be re entered, if they could

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Speaker 2: recover the remains of their loved ones. The families of

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Speaker 2: the Pike twenty nine are still waiting. The media left

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Speaker 2: town and away, the world moved on around them. But

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Speaker 2: you get the sense, after fifteen years, the little part

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Speaker 2: of Greymouth is still hollowed out, kind of like I

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Speaker 2: experienced on that afternoon, still waiting for justice.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or

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