On the eve of the first anniversary of the Pike River Mine disaster families are still struggling to come to terms with the loss of 29 men.
Jo Ufer, mother of Joshua whose body remains in the mine, told TV ONE's Close Up the past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions and she said the memorial will be "another milestone".
"To get through 12 months and be here for Joshua that's what it is all about."
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Michael Monk's father Bernie told TV ONE's Close Up it has been a year of hell.
"We still haven't got our guys out and tomorrow is going to be a very emotional day for our family."
Ufer said she has been really disappointed by the developments in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the disaster.
"It just makes me angry that it got to that stage and our boys weren't safe."
Milton Osborne's wife Anna told Close Up that sitting through the inquiry she has had a feeling of "shock and disbelief that our Labour Department could be so incompetent".
"I knew it was going to be bad but I wasn't prepared for that."
The comments come on a day when a key witness told the Commission that the explosion was an "accident waiting to happen".
'Accident waiting to happen'
Dr Kathleen Callaghan, the Director of the Human Factors Group in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Auckland, told the inquiry today that the mine's safety systems failed "time after time'' before last year's disaster which claimed the lives of 29 men.
"In crude terms, the evidence I have seen indicates that Pike River Mine was an accident waiting to happen, in the sense that an accident, not necessarily this accident, was probable," she said.
She went on to say that "unsafe behaviour became routine" at Pike River.
Callaghan said that when comparing Pike River with similar mine disasters in Australia, it was clear safety procedures were below par at the mine.
She criticised the Department of Labour saying all the evidence presented to the Commission shows there were holes in Pike's managements systems and there were "well known holes in the Department of Labour".
Monk said there were tears in the eyes of many family members in the court room today, but the support of the community will help them get through it.
Commissioner Pankhurst acknowledged today that family members in the court room have sat through some difficult evidence.
"Very conscious of the fact that it sat through-out the week, and the families in particular have been confronted with difficult if not some harrowing evidence, when tomorrow is the first anniversary of the tragedy.
The Commission believed that "the best way to remember and honour the lives of the men, even at this time, was by pressing on with the inquiry."
'Impossible task'
Kevin Poynter, Former Health and Safety Inspector, Department of Labour, yesterday told the Commission the responsibility clearly lay with the mine and that he had an "impossible task" dealing with the workload at the mine and that the system was under resourced and dysfunctional.
Callaghan also highlighted other New Zealand tragedies, such as the 1979 Mt Erebus plan crash and the 1995 Cave Creek platform collapse to explain how the country had failed to learn any safety lessons.
Families' representative Bernie Monk said Callaghan has put "an
element of fresh air into the Commission" and the family lawyers
spent hours to ensure she could be a part of the inquiry.
"She's got a lot to offer New Zealand and health and safety and she
has put it on the line of what happened there and she is not
putting the blame on anyone.
"We don't want this to happen again and that is why she is here. I think it was just marvellous what she said today."
He said the families were kept up-to-date on what was going to be said but "it still rips you apart a bit how she said it".
The first week of the third phase of the inquiry is now
complete.
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