Remembering The Newcastle Earthquake

Reports at the time claimed the Newcastle earthquake

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The reports at the time claimed the Newcastle earthquake sounded like the ground cracking apart, a train crashing into a wall and a deafening rumbling. But to Bruce Hounslow, then a paramedic, the sound as the earthquake tore through the NSW steel city 30 years ago is one he will never forget.

“I remember hearing an almighty bang,” Bruce, now 70, says of that day that changed his life. “When I went out in the street, I quickly realised something terrible had happened. It was chaos.”

At 10.27am on Thursday, December 28, 1989, an earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale shattered Newcastle.

Thirteen people died, 160 were seriously injured and 50,000 buildings were damaged, at a cost of around $4 billion.

The Newcastle earthquake remains one of the worst natural disasters in Australian history, wreaking physical, financial and emotional havoc across the country’s seventh biggest city.

On this year’s 30th anniversary of the disaster, Bruce admits time has done little to erase the pain of that day.

As a paramedic, he found himself on the frontline of the rescue efforts at the two worst-hit locations – the collapsed Newcastle Workers Club and along devastated Beaumont Street in Hamilton.