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- <text id=90TT0047>
- <title>
- Jan. 08, 1990: World Notes:Australia
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Jan. 08, 1990 When Tyrants Fall
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 47
- World Notes
- AUSTRALIA
- First Time Unlucky
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> 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."
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-