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- WORLD, Page 47World NotesAUSTRALIAFirst Time Unlucky
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- For 15 long seconds the ground shook. Buildings crumbled,
- cars were flattened, at least ten people were killed, and some
- 120 were injured. The first major earthquake to hit an
- Australian city struck the New South Wales port of Newcastle,
- 100 miles north of Sydney, at 10:28 a.m. last Thursday. Said
- one resident: "It felt like there was someone under my bedroom
- floor who lifted the house."
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- Australians were caught off guard by the quake's intensity,
- though it measured only 5.5 on the Richter scale, vs. 7.1 for
- the tremor that rocked San Francisco Oct. 17. The principal
- damage occurred in the heart of the city of 430,000, where the
- Newcastle Workers' Club collapsed, trapping staff members and
- morning bingo players. Emergency personnel were flown from
- Sydney to help with rescue efforts, but by week's end the city
- was still crippled. Preliminary estimates set the cost of the
- destruction at more than $1 billion.
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