NSW: Newcastle remembers quake 10 years on

AAP General News (Australia)
12-28-1999
NSW: Newcastle remembers quake 10 years on

SYDNEY, Dec 28 AAP - The silence in the city of Newcastle today was broken only by
the City Hall clock chiming 13 times.

The clock's sombre tones, struck at 10.27am, were the city's way of remembering the
13 victims of Australia's deadliest known earthquake.

Ten years ago today, morning tea at the Newcastle Workers Club was interrupted by a
brief but devastating earth tremor.

In six seconds,12 people had been killed and another elderly woman died later from
earthquake-induced shock.

Today relatives and friends of the victims threw white lilies into the Pool of Remembrance.

Newcastle Lord Mayor John Tait said the passage of time had allowed the people of Newcastle
to get on with the process of healing.

"Newcastle has got a very strong air of optimism, a lot of opportunity, but I think
it's appropriate to pause and think about it ten years afterward," Mr Tait said.

"I think it is part of the hurting process but I think we've also been through it.

"It's rarely on people's minds these days."

Not all the families of the mostly elderly victims attended today's service conducted
jointly by the Catholic, Uniting and Anglican churches, preferring to remember their loved
ones in private.

Nine of those killed were at the Workers Club, while the other three were at the Kent
Hotel in Hamilton.

Hospitals treated 162 people.

Measuring 5.6 on the richter scale, the quake cost more than $1 billion, damaged 60,000
buildings with 300 requiring demolition, and was felt hundreds of kilometres away.

Mr Tait, who was a city councillor at the time, was an hour up the coast at Shoal Bay
with his family.

"We were in a block of units on the third level and the building shook. We headed down
the stairs and I was concerned we were not going to get out of the building," he said.

"When we got outside somebody said `That was an earthquake' and I made the comment
that `We don't have earthquakes here'."

Returning to Newcastle, Mr Tait found a ruined city which "made it obvious what had happened".

Mr Tait said the earthquake had some positive effects, such as making the country's
sixth largest city put a value on heritage buildings and, on a wider scale, ensuring all
local governments had emergency plans in place.

"I guess with every bad situation there's pluses and minuses, it depends on how you
are individually affected, but the significant thing is that we've moved on," he said.

"It's just part of our history, we've been through an experience that's not what you'd
want to wish on anybody else - but nevertheless it happened."

AAP jw/pjs

KEYWORD: NEWCASTLE QUAKE (CARRIED EARLIER)

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.