Despite two days of frantic pumping and bailing of the floodwater and with other equipment transported from the monitor ship HMVS Cerberus, the waters filled the mine shaft.
The trapped men scrawled last notes to their loved ones on billy cans before they drowned.
The funerals[1][2] took place on 15 December and the procession of 4,000 was about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long between the mine and Creswick cemetery.
[3] In 1982, the Premier of Victoria, John Cain unveiled The New Australasian No.2 Deep Lead Gold Mining Memorial, which relates the story on a plaque.
[4] In 2007 a further plaque was unveiled at the mine site for the 125th Anniversary along with an avenue of 22 oak trees., one for each miner who died in the disaster.