The first phase of the hearings at Greymouth District Court will put the mining tragedy in context and ends on July 22.

The second phase will delve into the search and rescue operations, with hearings on September 5-23.

The hearing dates for third and fourth phase have not been set, with the commission indicating that “future hearings are yet to be scheduled”

As previously flagged, the third phase is on what happened at the mine and the final phase will look into policy considerations.

On the work underway, the commission said there are more than 60 participants formally involved in the inquiry.

“The Pike River Royal Commission team is currently analysing and working through thousands of pages of submissions, evidence and other documents,” the commission said in its first edition of its News Update bulletin.

“It is also engaging specific expertise from Australia in relation to mine management and operations, search and rescue and emergency response services, the analysis of underground gaseous environments, underground mine inspection and health and safety.”

The commission provided more clarification on its goals.

“The commission is conducting an inquiry. It is not running a court hearing, there are no sides and no one is on trial. The commission will operate in a fair and open manner. It will report and make recommendations to the Governor General.”

Plans are underway to beef up the commission’s website which is expected to feature an RSS feed for automatic email updates.

Transcripts of each hearing are expected to be available at the end of each day on the website: http://pikeriver.royalcommission.govt.nz.

Free subscriptions to the commission’s monthly newsletter can be made by email request at this address: pikeriver@royalcommission.govt.nz.