The Box Flat Mine disaster occurred on the 31 July 1972 [1] when 17 miners lost their lives after an underground gas and coal dust explosion, 14 men who were working in the vicinity of the explosion and three miners who were working on a belt adjacent to the mine entrance.

An eighteenth man Clarence Edwin Wolski died on 20 February 1974 as a direct result of injuries sustained in the Box Flat explosion.

2 level of Box Flat No.5 mine, assisted by a scheduled fan stoppage, during which reduced air flow allowed self-ignition of the coal heap.

This developed into a large fire over an 8-hour period, assisted by the increased air flow when the mine fan was restarted.

[3] A later report found that safety requirements and regulations at the mine had not been complied with at the time of the accident, although it stopped short of concluding that these lapses were the cause of the disaster.