Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
GLASS shattering was the first thing former NBN cameraman Stewart Osland heard.
It was 10.27am on Thursday, December 28, 1989 – a day that is still fresh in his mind 25 years on.
A 5.6 magnitude earthquake had just struck Newcastle.
Mr Osland and journalist Ross Hampton were at the Hamilton bus depot conducting an interview with a union official on a local workers’ strike when the earthquake hit.
The pair ran to the end of the street, where they could see the Denison Street ambulance station had partially collapsed.
People stood, dazed, in the middle of the street.
‘‘Nobody knew what it was,’’ Mr Osland said.
Mr Osland and Mr Hampton walked to Beaumont Street, where they heard via radio the cause of the tremor.
The arrived at the scene before emergency services.
Mr Osland described it as a ‘‘rubble tip’’.
‘‘We knew there could be possible loss of life, as we could see a couple of people trapped under steel girders, awnings and bricks,’’ he said.
The earthquake, which originated about 15 kilometres from Newcastle CBD in Boolaroo, claimed 13 lives and injured hundreds more.
But Newcastle was lucky, Mr Osland said.
‘‘Just as well there was a strike because there was not a soul in town.
‘‘If [the workers] weren’t on strike, one would hate to imagine the death toll.’’
After Beaumont Street, the duo travelled to Newcastle West, where they were stopped in their tracks at the corner of King and Union streets.
The Newcastle Workers’ Club, now Newcastle Panthers, had became a disaster zone.
It was one of the worst-hit buildings.
The club’s western wall had collapsed and the bottom floor had disappeared into the ground ‘‘like quicksand’’ - nine people died on the scene.
Mr Osland filmed the aftermath.
He later recovered a brick from a nearby collapsed Union Street building, and still has it to this day.
Mr Osland said in his 42 years in the television industry, the earthquake was one of the most memorable events he covered.