The Beaconsfield Mine Tragedy Rescue - The Role of the Surveyors
On 25th of April, Anzac Day 2006 at approximately 9.23 pm a seismic event was experienced in the vicinity of the 925 Level of the underground workings at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in northern Tasmania. It is believed that this seismic event triggered a rock fall that engulfed three miners, ultimately taking the life of one of the miners and seeing the rescue of the other two. During the fourteen days of the rescue from Anzac Day, many of the survey tasks carried out in the course of the day to day operations of the mine were implemented, but with the added pressure of responding quickly to decisions made by the Emergency Operations Control Group and having the world scrutinise our every move. In this paper, a brief overview of the mining method used in the vicinity of the 925 Level and the role that the Beaconsfield Mine Surveyors played in the rescue of Todd Russell and Brant Webb over the course of the rescue mission will be presented. At the time of writing, the disaster was still the subject of a coronial inquest and a Government inquiry and as such the scope of this paper is limited to the surveying tasks undertaken.