Hunter residents remember 1989 Newcastle earthquake

Mrs Rossi had been alone inside her Beaumont Street baby and childrens wear shop Stellas when the building started to sway from side to side and her transistor radio crashed from the shelf.

I did not know which way to run, Mrs Rossi, 77, said.

I felt a crack underneath me, then I realised the door was stuck.

My husband Renato was just outside the door, but I motioned to him to go and see where the screaming was coming from.

I thought I was gone, I thought the whole building was going to do down. I did not think I would have a hope. I did not think I was going to be saved.

I did not have time to think or pray, I was just going with my first instinct that someone needed to go to the screaming.

Mrs Rossi doesnt talk often about December 28, 1989, the day that shook the city to its core. The six-second earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale killed 13 people, including nine at Newcastle Workers' Club, plus a repair worker months later.

A total of 160 people were injured, some 50,000 buildings damaged and 300 were demolished, including 100 homes.

The Kent Hotels manager on duty Jason Trindall said it had been at least five years since people had paused at 10.27am on the anniversary for a footpath memorial service. Its not as big a deal as it used to be they dont do that anymore, Mr Trindall said. Its sad, because I think it should happen.

You do see a few people out there on the day, but they usually just mingle around, walk the streets and point things out.

Mrs Rossi only remembers the significance of the date every five to 10 years and doesnt mark the anniversary.

Its a very hard thing to forget, she said. But I prefer to leave it in the past.

Mrs Rossi was trapped in her shop for about 20 minutes before her son Carlo, then 25, arrived and dislodged the glass door, which had shifted.

Her husband had gone to the aid of a woman whose baby was buried in rubble underneath a collapsed awning.

The child was found safe, but three people died elsewhere on the street under different collapsed awnings.

Once free, Mrs Rossi was confronted with chaos.

There was lots of commotion and rubble everywhere, she said. It was ghastly looking at shops in that condition there was a doctor helping someone in the middle of the street, hams hanging there in the empty butchers shop.

The familys Cardiff home was not damaged and Mrs Rossi returned to work the next day to see bulldozers in the closed street.

Customers continued to make their way to the shop, using an alleyway between Beaumont Street and a carpark at the rear.

They still had weddings and christenings to go to and they were very grateful that I was open, she said.

Id been there for 20 years, but I sold the shop after about a year. Id had a robbery 10 years before that and I didnt feel like starting again from scratch and building it up for the third time.

Less than three kilometres from Beaumont Street, intensive care paramedic Ken Iles rescued roadie Patrick Murray, who had been on the top floor of the Newcastle Workers Club setting up for a Crowded House, Boom Crash Opera and Split Enz concert that night.

Mr Iles had been at his Raymond Terrace home on his day off when police officers pulled up and told him multiple buildings had collapsed across Newcastle.

I thought it was probably an over-exaggeration, he said. Those things happen in other countries, they dont happen in Australia thats what I felt.

Mr Iles said driving into the damaged city was surreal. The club was a mess, the floors had fallen onto each other like a deck of cards, he said. But it was quite incredible people did not need direction, people just found a role for themselves and started working.

I did not hear a voice raised in anger that whole day, except for when police had to close the building for a short time when there was fear that more of the building may fall. No-one wanted to do that and there was lots of agitation about wanting to go back in.

Mr Iles said the quake was one of the most significant days of my career, but he rarely spoke with survivors.

People dont want to be reminded of the worst day of their life, he said.

We do our job and get on with our life and they get on with their life.