has anyone here lived through the newcastle earthquake (1989) if so what was it like?

Answer 1

I was sitting about 4km from the epicentre. I recall hearing a helicopter overhead and then a very loud WHOOMP, as if the same helicopter had dropped a football field-sized slab of concrete onto the nearby park. I was thrown left, right, left, right in my chair. I ran outside to look for the truck I thought must have hit the side of the house.

Power was off for a short time. When it returned I started video-taping news broadcasts.

There was a lot of smoke coming from BHP, which scared a lot of people. It wasn't a fire, it was venting of the coke ovens because they could not be controlled without power. BHP had lost all electrical, generator and steam power for the first time.

My girlfriend at the time was living close to the Newcastle Workers Club, where some 9 people died when the auditorium collapsed. The house was filthy from dirt in the roof that fell when the ceiling separated from the walls. I stayed there for a few days to help her clean the house and move out. The inner city was very quiet as the streets were blocked off from everyone but locals (or people like me on bicycles.)

Only a few buildings were destroyed by the quake itself. A lot were damaged, but not to the extent that you might have thought. A few buildings were knocked down by opportunistic developers in spite of their obvious integrity. There is video of one building refusing to budge despite a real pounding by the wreaking ball. Irony was that the site remain vacant for several years afterwards.

If you lived in the City, it was difficult. Shops couldn't get deliveries unless their drivers said that they were delivering for a charity. We had a meal at the Salvos Youth centre when the street was blocked and we could get back home. We had to climb over fences and drop down a wall to get there. (There were no youths there that night.)

New Years 1990 arrived with one policeman on a chair sitting on Hunter Street, near Civic Station.

The really nice thing was how people worked together. There was no looting. People really wanted to help each other, even in small ways. A cuppa tea, help with removing rubble, offer to do a load of washing. I've seen some emergencies in Australia since where the locals just whine and complain and wonder why someone else doesn't do something. We got off our arses and helped ourselves and that made me proud to be a novacastrian.

I've never known a city so quiet... and I now live in Canberra. :)

The sad thing was that the economy wasn't strong in Newcastle at the time so there were vacant lots until about 1994, when things started moving.

I've experienced small quakes in Japan up to magnitude 3. There is something quite different about them that tells you that it isn't a train passing.
My wife was in Kobe on 17 January 1995 for the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake which killed 6,434. Scary as hell. I visited the museum in 2004 and the simulator was enough to give me nightmares.

Answer 2

I felt it in Sydney. The earthquake killed 13 people so the vast majority of people in Newcastle and Sydney lived through it. It was a short-lived shake and seemed to have a "whoomp" sound as it occurred. It happened at 10.28 by the clock in my office because at 10.28 and one second the phones started ringing and didn't stop for four hours with people wanting to report an earthquake.

Answer 3

Hello,
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It is a driving simulation game in which you will start as an employee in the cargo transportation enterprise. It recreates a driving truck through 18 different cities in UK with sixty different kinds of cargo that you will have to deliver on time.
You should definitely try it