There were almost 150 people in the room at the Cloncurry Community Precinct on Tuesday but at one point you could have heard a pin drop as they were transfixed by one of the speakers.
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They were there for the Destination Q events conference and speaking was Sir Bob Parker, the former mayor of the city of Christchurch in New Zealand.
Sir Bob was mayor during the city's worst ever day, February 22, 2011.
At 12.51pm local time a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck near the surface epicentred 6.7km south-east of the city.
Despite the relatively low magnitude (a magnitude seven quake had hit the city a year earlier without deadly consequences), the nearness to the surface and the city caused many buildings to collapse and 185 people died.
Over half of the deaths occurred in the six-storey Canterbury Television Building, which collapsed and caught fire in the earthquake.
Sir Bob was in a meeting with staff when the quake struck.
They rushed outside and although they had no idea of its impact, they knew immediately from the noise, dust, damage and sirens that it was very bad.
He played a video taken from the streets in the immediate aftermath showing ruined buildings and people still in shock from what had happened.
As well as the enormous death toll and destruction, the liquefaction (water exploding under pressure) caused thousands of homes to be abandoned forever.
The theme of the Cloncurry conference was "how the past shapes the future" and Sir Bob told his audience about important lessons they learned in the massive rebuild.
Key lessons included: prepare for the worst thing to happen - then double it, build a big network because you'll need it, get your communications right, be honest, and fix one problem at a time.
They were also flexible. Christchurch relaxed the building use rules so people could work from home, so 95% of businesses were functioning within a year. "We innovated and took risks," he said. "When the dust settled we began to re-envision the world". They ended up stronger than before. Derek Barry