ARLA/CLUSTER: Auxilio dos radioamadores recordado no 25º Aniversário do terramoto de Newcastle na Australia

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

The Australia earthquake anniversary

The Newcastle Earthquake Disaster happened at 10:27 hours on December
28, 1989, that is 25 years ago and a week or so ago - with those
involved and officials holding a memorial ceremony.

Although only at 5.5 on the Richter scale, the earthquake had
devastating effects on the City of Newcastle, the 6th largest in
Australia. There were 12 lives lost. The damage bill exceeded $600
million.

Many inner city buildings were historic up to 100 years old, built
from single and double cavity brick.

Much of the area was built on low lying former swamp lands that did
not provide for solid foundations, and no match for the earthquake.

WICEN members played an important part in the recovery efforts. As
soon as volunteers arrived at SES HQ they joined the many rescue
crews.

There were no radios in the trucks and WICEN stepped in to help, with
effective use of the local area 2-metre repeater.

The Newcastle Workers Club had collapsed causing 9 deaths. Four
hotels, a school, historical buildings and hundreds of homes were
wrecked.

The SES controller needed a buffer between him, the public and news
media. Keith Howard VK2AKX with a little help took over responsibility
for public welfare inquiries and issued all press releases on behalf
of the SES Controller.

Soon the whole world wanted to know about the alleged looting ? there
was none. Keith VK2AKX was more than up to the task and in control.

A number of the barricades were manned by radio amateurs providing a
radio link as required. Many police had mobile phones, but the
telephone system was congested meaning that they were basically
useless.

As army and police reinforcements arrived, several radio amateurs were
taken off barricades and re-assigned to rescue teams.

The WICEN report on the disaster makes very interesting reading, and
showed once again that the 63 radio amateurs involved did a sterling
job.

Jim Linton VK3PC

Fonte: Wireless Institute of Australia