Tales from Meckering earthquake in print

The demand has proven that even after more than 50 years, the 1968 Meckering earthquake is still a topic of great interest.

Since the book launched last October, Alice Snooke, the driving force behind it, has almost sold out of her 900 copies.

"It shows that there is still an interest for it or it wouldn't have gone as well as it has," Ms Snooke said.

After a generation died without sharing their stories, she was driven to compile the stories for herself.

"We lost their stories as they passed and I thought it's time someone did put pen to paper and gather the stories, so that's how it came about," she said.

To get started Ms Snooke placed newspaper advertisements, asking people to help and almost immediately received calls.

Within 12 months she had all the stories in, noting with a modest ease that "it didn't take long really".

Held at the Meckering Sporting Club, the book launch was attended by about 250 people.

"It's hard to know an exact number but I know roughly because members of the family had to go to the Meckering Town Hall to get more chairs as there wasn't enough," Ms Snooke said.

"To me the launch was an example of true country hospitality and the afternoon tea that we put on for so many people, the Meckering hockey girls supplied it all."

The book features 175 stories from people who all experienced the earthquake first-hand.

"There are all types of stories, everyone is very important to me - especially considering the fact that people took the time to send them in," she said.

"But this one story, they came from Cunderdin and they'd been to Perth and as they were coming home along Great Eastern Highway the fault line came up right in front of them.

"It is unbelievable that they were there at that precise time in that exact moment."

Ms Snooke also describes another story from the book, of a local workman and his four children who because it was school holidays were all home at the time of the earthquake.

"When it happened the children were buried under the rubble, they couldn't see them but they could hear them screaming," she said.

"They had to get shovels and dig them out, which would have been just so terrifying as a parent.".