The owners of the Pike River Mine in New Zealand said they will not re-enter the mine the retrieve the remains of the 29 miners killed there in a methane explosion in 2010.

State-owned company Solid Energy said re-entry to the mine would be too dangerous.

The Solid Energy chair, Pip Dunphy, said the company was unable to come up with a safe re-entry plan. “We know this decision will be very disappointing to the family members and friends of the men who died in the mine,” she said.

“However, any further loss of life in this mine is unacceptable and any possibility of other families having to go through what the Pike families have suffered is not something our board can support.”

Dunphy said risks included the possibility of the roof collapsing due to fire damage and difficulties managing gas levels and ventilation, The Guardian reported.

Bernie Monk, whose 23-year-old son Michael died in the accident, said expert advice gathered by the victims’ families indicated the mine could be re-entered safely. Nevertheless, he said, it was time to move on rather than spending months more debating the issue.

“Reluctantly, some of us, like me, have succumbed to the realisation that the men will have to stay there and that’s their burial ground,” Monk told The Guardian.

Some families of the Pike River mine victims called the decision unjust and unfair.

“It’s not where I want my husband to be,” said Anna Osborne. “All our men deserve to be buried in a place of our choice.”

Solid Energy also announced it was relinquishing its Pike River mining permit, which will revert to government ownership. That means the company will not seek to extract any more coal from the mine.

Monk said the families had asked the government to turn the site into a memorial and a health and safety training area.

At the time of the accident the mine was owned by the Pike River Coal company, which later went bankrupt. A government investigation found Pike River Coal ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to explosive levels in the mine.

The company was convicted of nine health and safety violations. Charges against the company’s former boss were dropped last year.