It has been 25 years since the worst earthquake in Australia’s history rocked Newcastle.

Some survivors of the quake that killed 13 people have shared their stories with the ABC.

In a suburban Newcastle home, Kerri Ingram and Elaine Stamford are looking back at a dark part of their lives.

In front of them are photos from the late 1980s taken in the wake of the Newcastle earthquake.

A damaged building in the 1989 quake. Photo: AAP

Among the photos is the wreckage of the Newcastle Workers Club, a place where they were both once employed.

The two were working there the morning of the earthquake on December 28, 1989.

Ms Stamford was in the poker room kiosk when the quake hit.

“At 10:28 there were big balls of black smoke,” she said.

“My head hurt, my ear was cut, I was flung off the seat, couldn’t hear anything and everything was quiet.

“That’s when things started falling from the auditorium from above me, big clags of cement, dust, dirt.”

She was rescued by her manager after being trapped by the rubble.

Ms Stamford says she remembers the chaos and confusion when she finally got outside the club.

“We didn’t know how many staff had been hurt, we didn’t know about customers, we didn’t know what it was,” she said.

“We had no bags, the bags were in the club, we had no money, there were no mobile phones, there were no phones to use because all the lines were down.

“There was nothing.

“We were sort of stranded on the median strip out the front of the club.”

For her colleague Ms Ingram, it was a similar story of uncertainty.

She was working in the bar area at the time.

“So quiet and then all of a sudden you hear a crackle – thunder, really loud – and then that’s when everything started to come in,” Ms Ingram said.

“The back wall from the bar I was at, you could see that come in.

“The roof is coming in, there’s starlight coming in, there’s dust going everywhere and you really did not understand or realise what was happening at the time.”

Rescue workers check structural damage to a building. Photo: AAP

For Ms Ingram, thinking back on the day brings her to tears, as she lost people close to her.

“I still blame myself for Barry Sparkes’ death,” she said.

With her voice cracking and tears falling down her face, she pauses to compose herself.

“We used to get a $5 lottery ticket each fortnight and he came up and he says ‘I’ll go down and get some money’, and I said ‘no, come on, we’ll go and get a cup of coffee,” she said.

“That was the last I saw of Barry because he went downstairs to get his $2.50 for his lottery ticket and I feel that if he didn’t go down he’d still be here today.

“I lost one of the girls in the kiosk and I lost, I think, two of the customers.”

Ms Ingram says the day has had a lasting impact on her life.

“I can’t go under car parks, thunderstorms, lightning storms scare the shit out of me because of the noise factor of that club,” she said.

“It was dead quiet and then when everything happened it was so loud, so, so loud.

“It’s like a mechanism in the back of your brain, you don’t think about it until they really publicise it on the TV, the first anniversary, the second anniversary, etc.”

For the 25th anniversary, these friends will be leaning on each other for support.

“When it is the anniversary and it’s flashed on the TV and they show the Workers Club, and you know exactly where everybody was, you know exactly what happened, what the situation looked like and you think ‘thank God I’m alive,” Ms Ingram said.

“It’s not as bad as it used to be.

“It’s good, it’s getting better.”

A harrowing tale of survival

Dennis Russell sits on his balcony overlooking the crystal blue waters of Lake Macquarie.

It is a calm environment for the retired 71-year-old. A complete contrast to the chaotic scenes he lived through nearly 25 years ago to the day.

On December 28 1989, Mr Russell was working on a crane next to the Newcastle Workers Club.

“I heard this rumbling, the roof shook up and down and I stood up and out of the corner of my eye I looked over my right should and saw the wall start to fall down, so I took off,” Mr Russell said.

“The bricks caught up with me and dragged me under the crane and I was there for probably ten minutes.

“The only thing I could think of was the crane falling on top of me so I dragged myself out and I couldn’t see anything but cement dust.”

Mr Russell says after freeing himself, he raced back to the workshop where his co-workers were.

“I raced back inside to the garage and they thought I was dead,” he said.

“I was covered in cement dust and they thought they saw a ghost.”

He remembers the harrowing scene around the Workers Club in the moments after.

“They were putting all the poker machines in one end and in the other end all bodies,” he said.

Despite the years that have passed since the disaster, he still counts his blessings.

“If I hadn’t had seen that wall falling down it would’ve hit me I think,” he said.

“When you see all the other people getting killed and I survived and got out of it.

“I try to sometimes take it out of my mind I don’t think about it all the time.

“I think how lucky I was and why the others and not me when I was in that position underneath the crane.

“It wasn’t a very nice day.”