Newcastle Earthquake-25 years ago today.

**Ausfree** · 28th December 2014, 06:00 PM

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Newcastle Earthquake. It's an event I remember only too well.

At the time I owned a photographic shop in Hunter Street opposite the Civic Railway station and I was just walking into my shop when the quake struck. If I hadn't managed to cling onto the door frame I would have been knocked off my feet. Looking into the shop I could see shock waves going like ripples down the walls and the floor of the shop. My staff were frantically clinging onto the counter.

I turned around and looked out the door and I saw the brick walls from the top floor of Street Real Estate building which was situated diagonally opposite my shop tumble to the pavement. If any body was walking on the footpath under their awning at that time (the awning came down too) they would have been killed.

The phones were dead and in those pre-mobile phone days I could not contact anybody to let them know we were uninjured. The police came down Hunter Street with loud speakers telling everybody to vacate and head for their homes.

It was a day I will never forget. I actually drove past the Newcastle Workers Club which had collapsed killing several people and it was pandemonium there. The police waved me through and so I headed home, much to the great relief of my wife.
Newcastle earthquake anniversary: Survivors share their stories 25 years after Australia's worst quake - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Actually, in this article from the Newcastle Herald there is a picture of the damaged Street Real Estate office, the photo would have been taken somewhere near the front of my shop.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/27...-photos/?cs=12

**101RRS** · 28th December 2014, 06:50 PM

I was sitting in my Landie Series 3 parked in my mum's driveway - the car started rocking side to side and got up a swing that saw the suspension bottom out onto the bump stops as it went from side to side.

There was a loud whoosh sound while the car rocked and my then mum come flying out of the house with a worried look. We have a huge 15m high brick shed at the back of the property and without understanding what the issue was we intially thought the shed had fallen down and caused all the ruckus - it was only when we went around the back and saw the shed still there so was something else.

We did not even consider an earthquake and was not until we heard it on the news understood what it was. Our brick veneer house was OK but the lining inside cracked a bit and a few of the house piers sunk a bit and the back room is still a bit bouncey (At Xmas I tried to get my 12yo nephew to go under the house to put some wedges on top of the piers to support the floor but he is too scared of the Red Bellies that live there - sook).

Was an experience I do not want to repeat.

**Bushie** · 30th December 2014, 09:01 PM

That morning I was fighting a fire just to the west of home, we had no idea there had been an earthquake at Newcastle, but were very aware of the sudden fall of a number of fire damaged trees at the same time.
We had no sense of ground movement, but there obviously was some.

Martyn

**DBT** · 30th December 2014, 09:11 PM

We felt it in Sydney. I was on the phone to my GF, when our house shook. We both said "What was that?" at the same time. Noting we were located 20km apart at the time (and close to 200km from Newcastle), we concluded it must have been big, wherever it was.

We found out soon after on the news.

Thread: Newcastle Earthquake-25 years ago today.

Thread Tools

Newcastle Earthquake-25 years ago today.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions