In The Press Building

“I was on the phone to a man whose earthquake-damaged home burned down in Pines Beach when the earthquake hit,” eyewitness Nicole Mathewson writes for The Sydney Morning Herald. “At first I thought it was just another aftershock but quickly got under the desk when the phone disconnected and the roof of The Press building started to collapse in one corner. The shaking probably did not last as long as it felt, but it certainly felt much worse than the magnitude 7.1 earthquake on September 4. Dust filled the second floor and the roof had collapsed between the old Press building and the newer one. People started to emerge from under their desks to check on each other, then cautiously left the building, picking their way through the bricks strewn across the main stairwell.”