Mine fire made residents sick, inquiry told

RESIDENTS living near a coal mine that burned for 45 days were made “sick to their stomachs” by the smokey air, an inquiry has heard.

Teague Inquiry into the Hazelwood coal mine fire. 26 May 2014, Morwell Morwell residents Jim Gore, Lynton Azlin and Rex Parker give their opinions on the first day of the Inquiry into the Hazlewood coal mine fire. Picture: Eugene Hyland

RESIDENTS living near a coal mine that burned for 45 days were made “sick to their stomachs” by the smokey air, an inquiry has heard.

The investigation into the Hazelwood mine fire also heard the blaze was a world-first occurrence and the agency responsible for monitoring air quality had no precedent for dealing with the emergency.

Single father Simon Ellis said the community was frustrated by the lack of information about air quality and his health and that of his seven-year-old daughter were affected by the smoke that hung over the town of Morwell.

He said sometimes the smoke was so thick he couldn’t see across the road.

“There were days where you’d walk out and it was like you were breathing in something different. It wasn’t a taste you enjoyed,” Mr Ellis told the inquiry yesterday.

“It made us sick to our stomach.”

Some residents were advised to leave due to the smoke and ash that hung over the town from February 9.

However, when quizzed on why the town’s 2000 students weren’t relocated, a state education department representative said it would have been highly disruptive.

“Our primacy as an education department is the education and learning for children in the community of Morwell,” the department’s regional services deputy secretary Nicholas Pole told the inquiry.

“It is highly disruptive to a group of teachers and students to be relocated.”

Schools and early childhood centres were provided with air monitoring equipment to help principals make decisions about letting children outside, although this didn’t start until February 18 - ten days after the fire started.

The inquiry heard Victoria’s Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) had not been called to respond to a mine fire before.

John Merritt, its chief executive at the time, said the EPA was not an emergency air monitoring agency.

“It was simply without precedent that we would have this sort of event of this sort of duration ... that would warrant the emergency readiness of mobile air monitoring equipment,” Mr Merritt said.

The inquiry heard the EPA was called in to help with the emergency response to the fire on February 11 - two days after the blaze started in the open-cut brown coal mine - and first transmitted reliable data from a 24-hour reading on February 14.

It also heard there was a week-long gap between air quality data being recorded at East Morwell and Morwell South where conditions were more severe.