Strongman - The Tragedy

Winner of Best Documentary at the 2012 NZ Film and TV Awards, this docudrama mixes interviews, archival footage and drama to depict a tragic gas explosion at the Strongman coal mine. Nineteen miners died at the West Coast site in January 1967. Thanks to the quick actions of fellow workers most of the bodies were retrieved the same day. In this short excerpt, survivors of the tragedy and their family members discuss the lead-up to the incident, intercut with a recreation of the day in 1967. First-time director Paula McTaggart's uncle Ronnie Gibb was the first rescuer to enter the mine after the explosion.

When I heard about Pike I was just stunned. Here I'd been working on Strongman for a couple of years, never in a million years did I envisage that another disaster would happen. It really knocked me for six. I spoke to some of the people who I'd interviewed, we talked about it, and decided it was the right thing to carry on, that it was even more important that it got made.

– Writer and co-director Paula McTaggart on hearing about the Pike River Mine explosion, The Sunday Star-Times, 13 May 2012

Key Cast & Crew

Simon Coldrick

Post-Production Director, Editor, Second Unit Director- Dramatic Sequences

Paula McTaggart

Director - Documentary, Producer, Story, Research

Gaylene Preston

Director - Dramatic Sequences, Writer, Executive Producer

Russell Pickering

As: Terry Crowley

Mani Weir

As: Gary Coghlan

Stephen Handisides

As: Ginty Newcombe