Newcastle Earthquake: The Great Earthquake

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The 1989 Newcastle earthquake happened in Newcastle, New South Wales on Thursday, 28 December at 10:28am. It was one of the most damaging earthquake that hit Newcastle ever yet. The shock measured 5.6 on the Richter magnitude scale and was one of Australia's most severe natural disasters ever. An earthquake is the moment of an unexpected discharge of energy in the Earth's crust that produces seismic waves. It was very powerful that the earthquake was widespread across NSW. It was stated that the quake continued for numerous seconds and it sounded like loud explosion. Everyone was muddled on what was happening so some of them walked off out of the building, stunned and confused on what was going on. Little did they know it was an earthquake …show more content…

The social impact from the earthquake is that power was cut as family are not able to contact their loved ones. The environment impacts from the earthquake are that by buildings demolished, debris everywhere, plus gases polluting the air. The economic impact from the earthquake is that it costed fairly a lot to the community; approximately $4 million dollars was spent to fix Newcastle damage.
With also killing 13 people in the process of the earthquake and wounding more than 160 people that are been hospitalised from the earthquake. Which also lead to 1000 people who are left homeless from the destruction of the earthquake. The damage bill has also been estimated at A$4 billion. In the total of buildings being damaged was 50,000. Most earthquakes that happen at or near convergent and transform plate boundaries but this earthquake happens in the centre of tectonic plates. The earthquake epicentre was at Boolaroo which was 18.3km away from the …show more content…

Emergency crews hurried to the disaster points to begin looking through the wreckage and rescue those who were surrounded. As well as 3 people were crumpled to their death under a collapsed canopy on Beaumont Street, Hamilton. Which it is an inner-city suburb of Newcastle. With a death of a woman in Broadmeadow from an earthquake related shock. The aftershock occurred 33 hours after the earthquake. The final total of how many people pass away was elevated to 13. The human effect was that 300,000 people were affected and 1,000 made homeless. Throughout the earthquake it damaged over 35,000 homes, 147 schools, and 3,000 commercial

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