City still feels rumble of fatal 89 quake

It lasted all of six seconds but, 30 years later, people still recall in sharp detail the mundane things they were doing when it struck.

"I think it happened just before 10.30am. It was my mum's birthday and I was in my bedroom putting shoes on," says Stefo Nantsou, who was 28 at the time.

"It was like someone lifted up the house and dropped it," he told AAP.

"The mirror in my wardrobe jack-knifed out and nearly decapitated me."

The earthquake, which measured 5.6 on the Richter scale, rippled through Newcastle at 10.27am on December 28, 1989.

It toppled power lines, flattened buildings, killed 13 people and injured 162 others.

"There were maybe 400,000 people in the Newcastle region and every one of them could still tell you where they were," says John McNaughton, 82, who was the city's Lord Mayor at the time.

"I was on our sailing boat at Tea Gardens," he told AAP.

"I felt the earthquake and went ashore to buy some groceries and the whole town was agog that a quake had struck.

"They didn't realise the epicentre was near the coast and that Newcastle had been devastated."

Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Leon Kleinman, now 79, was sitting down for morning tea at Royal Newcastle Hospital.

"There was a loud bang and nobody knew what it was," he told AAP.

"It sounded like something heavy had been dropped in the basement or a truck had driven into the side of the building.

"People remember. I never knew you could get earthquakes in Newcastle. It's one hell of a way to find out."

Recovery efforts gravitated towards the collapsed Newcastle Workers Club, where nine people died and other survivors were trapped in the rubble.

Three others were killed on Beaumont Street in inner-suburban Hamilton when shop awnings collapsed and another person died the following day from quake-induced shock.

"On Beaumont street it was pandemonium," recalled Mr Nantsou, who is now an accomplished playwright and actor.

"All the awnings had fallen and all the windows had smashed.

"Then I rode up King Street and passed the workers club and saw how its three storeys had crushed down on each other.

"That's where the real chaos was. There was so much pain and anguish around that particular building. People were diving in to pull rubble out."

The workers club was setting up for a gig that night featuring Crowded House, Boom Crash Opera and Split Enz.

It is impossible to underestimate how integral the Newcastle Workers Club was to the city's character, Mr Nantsou said.

"It being destroyed was akin to the Opera House being smashed in Sydney. It was the iconic place of Newcastle.

"It was a cultural hub. It you wanted to see Midnight Oil or Cold Chisel that is where they played. Everyone went there."

Mr McNaughton, who was the Newcastle Lord Mayor between 1986 and 1995, also recalled vivid scenes from the workers club recovery operation.

"We had to pull down an enormous brick wall, it was leaning maybe 20 degrees from the vertical and had started to move.

"The police called the volunteers out, because if the wall fell there were 10 or 15 people working who also wouldn't survive.

"There were still survivors inside because we could hear them. It was an incredibly tough decision. They pulled the rescue team out and bought machinery in to stabilise the wall."

In the middle of the chaos there were remarkable acts of spontaneous goodwill, said Dr Kleinman, who was called down to the workers club to triage survivors.

"I remember one fellow spontaneously got some sandwiches and was walking around handing them out, someone else was walking around with cold drinks," he said.

"People just got together and got on with it."

Some 300 structures were demolished following the quake and some 1000 people were left homeless.

The quake damaged 40,000 homes and 147 schools, with the cost of the disaster estimated at more than $4 billion in today's terms.

Many in Newcastle have wondered whether the damage and death toll could've been far worse.

"If the earthquake had happened later in the evening, the number of casualties could have been much higher as thousands of people were expected to attend a Split Enz concert at the Newcastle Workers Club," said Geoscience Australia.

"It was also fortunate that, being a few days after Christmas, many heavily damaged education facilities were unoccupied at the time of the earthquake."

Mr McNaughton said there were "literally dozens of lucky escapes".

"There's a million stories as well. The hospitals had to be evacuated. One bloke who had been anaesthetised at the hospital woke up in a park on a beautiful day with seagulls swooping over him."

Mr McNaughton still feels a huge sense of pride at the way the city responded to the disaster.

"I recall it very sharply. I'm so proud of what the city did," he said.

"I'm immensely proud of the citizenry of Newcastle and all of those who cooperated together."

Saturday, December 28, marks 30 years since the killer earthquake struck Newcastle.

The city is marking the event with exhibitions at the Newcastle Museum, Newcastle Library and with a commemorative service at Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday morning.

Australian Associated Press