Wellington: The remains of 29 miners will probably be permanently entombed in a New Zealand colliery, with authorities acknowledging that efforts to make the mine safe enough to retrieve the bodies are unlikely to succeed.
Conditions remain too dangerous to enter the Pike River mine since an explosion tore through it on November 19. Attempts to extinguish underground fires and reduce levels of toxic gases have had only limited impact.
Last week, the New Zealand Police, which had been in charge of the recovery, abandoned its operation after experts doubted the mine would ever be safe enough to enter.
The mining company has collapsed under a mountain of debt and was put into receivership last month.
Responsibility for the recovery has been handed to the receivers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, who will continue the operation for another five to eight weeks, but said there was now only a slim chance of recovering the miners' remains.
"If there is a chance of that, it will be some way down the track, and it is unlikely to ever occur," PricewaterhouseCoopers partner John Fisk told Reuters.
The families of the dead men are urging authorities to pursue efforts to recover the bodies.
"I'm going to fight my guts out to make sure they don't seal that mine until all avenues are considered," Bernie Monk, a spokesman for the families and father of one of the dead men, told the New Zealand Herald newspaper.
The disaster, New Zealand's worst mining accident in almost 70 years, jolted the small country and in particular the sparsely-populated and isolated West Coast of the South Island.
Rescue authorities have spent the past seven weeks pumping inert gas and water vapour into the mine and sealing all air vents in a bid to make it safe to enter the 2.5 km (1.5 mile) tunnel and retrieve the miners' remains.