Science excitement Conference gathers scientists in Nanaimo. PAGE 6 Sensory garden Park upgrades target people with disabilities. PAGE 19 Cup bound V.I. Raiders host Langley Rams in championship game. PAGE 3
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2013
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VOL. 25, NO. 58
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Dive investigation handed to coroner BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Stephen P. Ricketts, city manager of engineering construction, surveys the site of an underground coal mine discovered on Pine Street near Victoria Road.
City looking at options to fill coal hole
I
CREWS FIND cavern during drill for utility upgrade.
BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
Nanaimo officials are investigating options to stabilize a city street after a void more than two sto-
reys deep was discovered beneath the surface. The City of Nanaimo found a 10-metre by 12-metre coal mine cavein beneath the surface of Pine Street near Victoria Road, last week. It starts a couple of metres below the surface and plunges eight metres deep. According to Susan Clift, the city’s director of engi-
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neering and public works, the municipality has been drilling in the area to test for mine voids that might collapse when construction crews start to build trenches for a water and sewer replacement project. Old coal company maps show Nanaimo’s abandoned mine shaft network stretches close to the sur-
face near Pine Street and Victoria Road, creating a potential safety issue. The recent discovery is the only hole found so far and has triggered the temporary shut down of one block on Pine Street. Now city officials are looking for a strategy to fill the hole – an extra expense for the utility project. ◆ See ‘MOST’ /10
The investigation into the deaths of two scuba divers is now in the hands of the B.C. Coroners Service. The case was handed over to the coroner Friday after police determined no foul play was involved in the incident that killed two of three divers partaking in a recreational dive at Snake Island Friday shortly before 3 p.m. All three divers are from Washington State. The incident triggered a massive rescue and search effort by the Canadian Coast Guard, the RCMP West Coast Marine Section and CFB Comox search and rescue squadron to get one of the divers to hospital and find a second diver who had gone missing. The diver who was rushed to hospital died Friday. The third diver was not injured. The body of the missing diver was located Sunday morning by a commercial diver, who was able to secure the body until the RCMP patrol vessel Higget arrived to assist in the recov-
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ery, police said in a press release. Barb McLintock, of the B.C. Coroners Service, said Tuesday the victims’ names had not been released because of difficulties contacting the next of kin and that the coroner’s investigation into the deaths is still in its early stages. “Basically, our first job, obviously, was to find and recover diver No. 2, which we successfully did on Sunday,” McLintock said. “Now we’re turning our attention to the whole question of what went wrong and how did this go so badly wrong, but we don’t have any answers to those questions yet. We just know they’re important questions.” Snake Island is located east of Nanaimo in Georgia Strait and is the furthest island out from the entrance to Nanaimo Harbour. The island is also home to the two most popular sites for dive boat excursions – the wrecks of the HMCS Cape Breton and HMCS Saskatchewan off the east side of the island, and the Snake Island Wall, which drops to a depth of at least 200 metres on the island’s west side. ◆ See ‘SNAKE’ /10
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