The town of Cobar in western New South Wales is mourning the loss of two miners who died in an explosion at the Endeavor mine early on Tuesday morning.
00:00The reverberations are still being felt throughout this local community here in Kobar.
00:07The explosion claimed the lives of two locals, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 20s.
00:13It also injured a second woman in her 20s who had to be flown to Orange Hospital for treatment.
00:19We spoke earlier this morning to the mayor of Kobar, Jared Marsden,
00:24who told us a bit more about how this tragedy is affecting this small town.
00:29All the churches have opened their doors.
00:31There's a grief counseling being set up in town by Polymedals with their Employee Assistance Program.
00:38And I'm aware that the other mines in town have also got their Employee Assistance Programs activated with counselors available.
00:46Residents have painted a picture of these victims as people who were deeply embedded and well-loved by their local community.
00:54Their absence is being felt by people who knew them and people who knew the people who knew them.
01:00Now, the New South Wales Resources Regulator has launched a full investigation into the cause of this incident.
01:07What exactly triggered the explosion yesterday still hasn't been officially disclosed at this time.
01:14But what we do know is that emergency crews were at the site all day yesterday attempting to extract the body of one of the victims, the man in his 60s.
01:23We do not yet know if they were successful in that effort.
01:26We spoke earlier to New South Wales Mine Workers Alliance local union representative Todd Ferguson.
01:35He told us a bit more about what he expects to come from this investigation.
01:38The investigation will focus on how it's happened, why it's happened, if there's any failings, what's failed.
01:46That's up to the regulatory bodies to go through that. They have their process.
01:51We've got access to industry health and safety experts that we'll be calling on for advice.
01:57We'll be waiting with the companies and the regulators to assist in any means necessary or any means possible
02:04just to figure out what's going on to ensure these things don't happen.
02:08And the community is just looking for where to go next and how they can move forward beyond this tragedy.
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