Book News February 2012

We're very aware this month of New Zealand's recent disasters—the Christchurch earthquake, the wreck of the Rena in the Bay of Plenty, and the Pike River Mine collapse in which 29 men died. This incident ranks as New Zealand's worst mining disaster since 43 men died at Ralph's Mine in Huntly in 1914.

 

In 2010, across the Pacific in Chile, another mine collapse threatened to end the lives of 33 men, trapped 700 metres deep beneath tonnes of rock. An award-winning journalist, Jonathan Franklin, had front-row access to the disaster and was determined to understand what those men experienced in their claustrophobic tomb for 69 agonising days. In The 33 he describes how their families kept faith, and records the massive scale of the rescue. Reading this gripping account of how hope overcame fear, and how ingenuity triumphed over adversity, we can only mourn for those to whom nature delivers a death blow, without any hope of rescue. Meanwhile it lifts the spirit to know that sometimes tragedy can be overcome by miracles of human cooperation and daring.

 

We're publishing The 33 in this month's Encounters.

 

To read an intimate account of 'the 33's' ordeal underground, click here. Be warned: it's not for the soft-hearted!