Rebecca Macfie - Tragedy at Pike River Mine: 2021 Edition: How and Why 29 Men Died

Best First Book of Non-fiction, New Zealand Society of Authors Award, 2014

Finalist, New Zealand Post Book Awards for Non-fiction, 2014

Bert Roth Award for Excellence in Labour History, 2014

Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Media Award, 2014

Praise for TRAGEDY AT PIKE RIVER MINE

A devastating account of a needless tragedy. Macfie capably dissects the corporate culture, explains the mine environment, and deals compassionately with the personal stories of the victims, and the loved ones they left behind. This book is a must-read for all those who find it incomprehensible how such an event can occur in the 21st century in our supposedly developed, modern nation

Victor Billot, Otago Daily Times

Macfie gets to the heart of a complex and detailed story without losing or confusing her audience. Lucid, exhaustive, enraging

Guy Somerset, New Zealand Listener

If youve already read accolades for this book, theyre all deserved and then some. Macfie digs through a mountain of information to deliver a compelling account of what went wrong at Pike River

Jim Eagles and Mark Fryer, Weekend Herald

Macfies powerful narrative brings a new, refreshing, insightful voice to tell a tale of corporate failure, and the men who paid the price

Laura Mills, Greymouth Evening Star

An astonishingly good book hard to put down, brilliant. If there is one book you need to read when it comes to corporate negligence, this is it

Duncan Garner, RadioLive Drive

At its heart, the Pike River disaster is a business story, and its full telling needed a business journalist of Rebecca Macfies experience and acumen. Her account is complex yet highly readable, and sometimes shocking

Philip Matthews, The Press

Rebecca Macfie has done the country a service in bringing this complex, drawn-out story so clearly to light. At its most banal its a page-turner. And her prose is a perfect example of Orwells gold standard for good writing: as clear as a window pane. Macfies work in laying down another plank in this sorry history deserves not just a prize but a medal

Jane Westaway, New Zealand Books

Credit is due to Rebecca Macfie for her book Tragedy at Pike River Mine. The investigation makes compelling reading and illustrates the power of journalism in book form

John Drinnan, The New Zealand Herald

Journalist Rebecca Macfies research is relentless and her writing style is easily accessible. She creates a palpable sense of urgency and anticipation, despite the fact readers already know the outcome

Ellen Read, The Sunday Star-Times

Should be compulsory reading for every director, manager and student of business in this country. The book leaves you in no doubt this was an accident waiting to happen. The question you are left with is why, in the modern age, a workplace can turn into a death trap The book is compelling, thorough and at the same time harrowing

Andrew Patterson, RadioLive Business

Macfie has absorbed and transmits a huge amount of detail, much of it quite technical, and always manages to stay on just the right side of lucidity

Paul Little, North & South

Macfies writing is straightforward and factual, which only increases the emotional impact of the book [It] will stand for a long time as one of the classics of New Zealand non-fiction

Lewis Martin, Nelson Mail

I was totally absorbed and shocked by this very well-written book. Rebecca Macfie has done the men and the families proud, and ensured this dreadful event will be not be forgotten or dismissed

Morrin Rout, Bookenz, Plains FM

Rebecca Macfie has undertaken a forensic dissection, meticulously documenting every crucial misstep, calculated and miscalculated, leading up to the fatal day. She paints a powerful picture of how far apart the public corporate face of Pike River Coal Ltd was from the chaotic, scrambling, reckless reality to which the companys workers and contractors were exposed. This riveting and extraordinarily authoritative book will withstand the closest professional and journalistic scrutiny

Cate Brett, former editor, TheSunday Star-Times

This is the best sort of journalism methodical, well researched

and dispassionate. But you can feel its cold anger

Nicholas Reid, Reids Reader

Macfies story is a tragedy in the terms richest sense: one in which the seeds are painstakingly sown, each piece fitted carefully into place

Tom Goulter, Fishhead

The book that will change the way we think about the Pike River mine disaster

Timaru Herald

Macfie has uncovered new material and fulfilled her aim of making the Pike story understandable to a wide audience, from families, friends and colleagues of the victims to New Zealanders as a whole, and to leaders of businesses and organisations

West Coast Messenger

An excellent and absorbing book which I thoroughly recommend

Roland McKeller, Opunake & Coastal News

This well researched book reads like a novel It is interesting and informative

Education Today

The accessible style in which Macfie has told this appalling story helps explain why her book has been on Nielsens list of non-fiction best sellers in New Zealand since its publication

Janet Hart, Kiwiboomers

First edition published in 2013 by Awa Press, Level 3, 27 Dixon Street, Wellington 6011, New Zealand.

Reprinted 2013 (twice), 2014 (twice), 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021.

ISBN 978-1-927249-78-9

Ebook formats

EPUB 978-1-927249-79-6

Mobi 978-1-927249-80-2

Rebecca Macfie 2013; updates Rebecca Macfie 2021

The right of Rebecca Macfie to be identified as the author of this work in terms of Section 96 of the Copyright Act 1994 is hereby asserted.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Macfie, Rebecca.

Tragedy at Pike River Mine : how and why 29 men died / Rebecca Macfie.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-877551-90-1 (pbk.)ISBN 978-1-877551-94-9 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-877551-956 (mobi)

1.Pike River Mine Disaster, N.Z., 2010. 2. Coal mine accidentsNew ZealandGrey District. 3. Accident victimsNew ZealandGrey

District. I. Title.

363.119622334099372dc 23

Typesetting by Tina Delceg

Ebook conversion 2021 by meBooks

Produced with the assistance of

Awa Press is an independent, wholly New Zealand-owned company.

Find more of our award-winning and notable books at awapress.com.

REBECCA MACFIE is a journalist and the recipient of more than 20 awards, including the Wolfson Press Fellowship. Her book