On December 7, 1988, a strong earthquake, one of the strongest in this country, occurred in Armenia, in the southwestern part of the former USSR. The earthquake had a magnitude of about 7 on the Richter scale. The impact of tremors manifested itself on the territory of the Republic of Armenia, which is located on the border of two tectonic plates - Anatolian, shifting to the south, and Eurasian, shifting to the north.
Dozens of cities and towns in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia fell into the earthquake zone. Armenia suffered the most. The city of Spitak (population 16 thousand people), located in the immediate vicinity of the epicenter of the earthquake, was completely wiped off the face of the earth. The earthquake source was located at a depth of up to 20 kilometers from the day surface and six kilometers northwest of the city.
More than 80% of the housing stock was destroyed in Leninakan, the second largest city in Armenia with a population of about 250 thousand inhabitants. Half of the buildings were missing in Kirovakan. In total, 400 villages were affected, of which 58 were badly damaged. According to estimates, 25 thousand people died (from other sources - 50 thousand people), more than 17 thousand were injured, 514 (up to 530 according to other estimates) thousand people lost their homes. Along with Spitak and nearby villages, buildings in twenty-one cities and towns, 324 villages were damaged by the earthquake. The destruction worsened after the main shock was followed by a series of aftershocks, the strongest of which was equal to 5.8R. About 2 million Armenians were left homeless and suffered from winter frosts.
The earthquake disabled about forty percent of the industrial potential of Armenia. There was significant damage to approximately nine million square meters of housing, of which 4.7 million square meters were simply destroyed or later demolished due to disrepair. As a result of the earthquake, general education schools for 210,000 students, kindergartens for 42,000 students, 416 healthcare facilities, two theatres, 14 museums, 391 libraries, 42 cinemas, 349 clubs and cultural centers were destroyed or fell into disrepair. 600 kilometers of roads, 10 kilometers of railways were put out of action, 230 industrial enterprises were completely or partially destroyed.
After the earthquake, in just one month, more than a hundred strong aftershocks were registered in the region of the epicenter by the seismological service of the Caucasus. Four minutes after the main shock, a strong aftershock occurred, the vibrations from it superimposed on the seismic waves from the first and apparently increased the damaging effect of the earthquake.
During the earthquake, a 37-kilometer rupture of the earth's surface occurred, with displacement amplitudes from 80 to 170 centimeters. It was formed on the site of a tectonic fault that already existed here, confirming once again that strong earthquakes in this area have occurred before. Strong earthquakes occurred in Armenia in 1679, 1827, 1840, 1926, 1931. However, despite all this, the territory of the Spitak earthquake at that time was not classified as potentially seismically dangerous.
The first plane of the USSR Ministry of Defense, together with military field surgeons and medicines, almost immediately as it became known about the earthquake, took off from Moscow's Vnukovo airport. In Yerevan, military doctors boarded a helicopter and landed in Leninakan two hours later. We sat down late at night and in complete darkness. Not a single light shone below, and it seemed strange where the living city had gone, where were its houses, streets, squares, squares? But there was no electricity in the city, just as there was not a single whole house - instead of them there were mounds and red tuff, rubble, concrete, brick, glass and furniture remnants. Shouts and groans were heard from all sides. With rare lanterns, men climbed these mounds, calling out the names of their wives and children and looking for their lost relatives. Occasionally, in the darkness, one could see the headlights of ambulances that were picking up the wounded.
The representative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia, who arrived in Spitak in the very first hours of the tragedy,
He reported: “In three days, more than 1,700 people were taken out from under the ruins, and more than 2,000 people taken out of the ruins can no longer be returned. There is no shortage of labor force: volunteers are constantly arriving from all over the republic and the country. But there is still not enough equipment, especially powerful cranes…”
It is a sad coincidence that at the moment when the Spitak earthquake occurred in Ashgabat, which suffered from a devastating earthquake forty years earlier, an all-Union meeting of seismologists was held, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Ashgabat disaster, when, according to the seismic station in Ashgabat, an earthquake was reported in Armenia. Just received seismograms were laid out right in the meeting room. According to them, it became clear that this is a catastrophe and that the destruction is great, and people are now dying under the rubble of buildings in Armenia.
The causes of the tragedy were predetermined in advance - not taking into account the high seismic hazard of the area where the cities of Spitak, Gyumri and Kirovakan are located. Houses here were built with the expectation of a much lower intensity of seismic impacts. And just as it has already happened almost everywhere - the extremely poor quality of buildings built without an accurate assessment of the soil conditions for construction sites.
In December, the film "Earthquake" is released. Sarik Andreasyan dedicated to the tragic events in Armenia. 28 years ago, almost half of the country's territory was affected by a powerful blow of the elements, thousands of people died, being trapped in stone captivity of destroyed houses. Then this trouble, without exaggeration, rallied the whole world. Help for the victims came not only from the Union republics, but also from other countries. It was a common grief, one for all.
Under the rubble
The main blow of the elements fell on the city of Spitak, which was at the epicenter of the earthquake; Leninakan, Kirovakan, Stepanavan and about 300 other settlements also suffered. Eyewitnesses of those terrible events said that in the first seconds, from strong vertical shocks, the houses literally jumped into the air, and then folded into a reinforced concrete pile, burying everyone inside. Those who were on the street at that moment could hardly stand on their feet, the ground was shaking. In a panic, many crowded in open squares and squares, afraid of being buried alive under the ruins of houses. After 30 seconds, the roar of collapsing buildings was replaced by silence, and a huge cloud of dust hung in the air.
When the aftershocks ended, someone could not recover from the shock, someone hurried home, hoping to find relatives and friends. But it was not possible to free people from the rubble on their own. The help of professional rescuers was needed. Alas, it did not come immediately, because the infrastructure of the republic was also badly damaged. And when the incident was announced on television, a huge number of people rushed to Armenia who wanted not only to help, but also to cash in on someone else's grief. As a result, all roads were clogged, which only aggravated the situation. Civil defense regiments could not get through to the scene of the tragedy.
City streets. Photo: RIA Novosti / Igor Mikhalev
The hardest thing was for those who were trapped in the stone captivity of their own homes. Some people remained completely immobilized under the rubble for several days. They didn't know what had happened or if help would come. history Emma Hakobyan and her three month old daughter Mariam knows the whole world. A woman with a child spent seven long days under the ruins of her house and only miraculously survived. At first she breastfed her daughter, but when the milk was gone, she pierced her finger, and maternal blood was used. Emma was taken out from under the rubble for 6 hours. But this story with a happy ending is rather an exception to the rule, in most cases people died without waiting for help.
Mass graves of victims of the earthquake. Leninakan, 1988 Photo: www.globallookpress.com
One sorrow for all
While most of the people were overwhelmed with grief and mourned the dead, the marauders were in a hurry to enrich themselves. They robbed savings banks and shops, without a twinge of conscience appropriated other people's things. They did not disdain anything: they tore earrings straight out of the ears of the dead, cut off fingers with rings. To stop this arbitrariness, 20 thousand military personnel came to the aid of the victims.
Along with egregious cases of looting, there were absolutely opposite stories. So, in Leninakan, relatives of the victims and the dead were released from colonies and prisons to help in excavating the rubble. They released 250 people - they returned a week later, only one escaped. Soon he was arrested.
Two days after the tragedy, he flew to Armenia General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev. The news of the earthquake caught him during an official visit to the United States. Gorbachev urgently returned to the Union, he arrived in Armenia with his wife. According to eyewitnesses, seeing the scale of the disaster, Raisa Maksimovna burst into tears.
Rescue work. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Makarov
The first days were especially difficult for Armenia, the number of deaths was in the thousands. The elimination of the consequences of the earthquake was carried out not only by professionals, but also by many volunteers. These people worked for days, with little or no sleep and rest, they lost their health, and sometimes they simply went crazy, unable to cope with their own emotions.
Assistance to the affected republic was provided not only by the entire Union, but also by many foreign countries. Doctors and rescuers from France, Switzerland, Great Britain, Germany and America arrived in Armenia. More than 100 states provided humanitarian support. It seemed that the tragedy united the whole world. However, the collapse of the USSR broke plans to restore the destroyed cities.
New life
Almost immediately after the tragedy, an operation to restore them began in the affected settlements. 45,000 builders from all the Union republics left for the disaster areas. Already on January 7, the first house was laid in Leninakan, and at the end of the year its new residents celebrated their housewarming.
Of course, it is reasonable to ask why the 1988 earthquake became so devastating and destroyed entire cities. The answer was simple: construction in the republic was carried out in violation of technology, and the quality of the materials used was very low. It is for this reason that the elements left over five hundred thousand people without a roof over their heads in a matter of seconds.
Restoration of housing in Leninakan, 1989 Photo: www.globallookpress.com
The earthquake in Armenia was a kind of impetus for the republics of the USSR to have a system for preventing and eliminating the consequences of various emergencies. Previously, there was not even an elementary plan of action in extreme conditions. Many leaders gave orders intuitively, for example, Head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of Leninakan Levan Galastyan at his own peril and risk, he ordered to completely shut off the gas. Subsequently, it became clear that if he had not turned off the gas without permission, the city would have burned, and the number of victims would have increased significantly.
Alas, a person often forgets what should never be forgotten. If in the first years after the tragedy, every December 7, the country mourned the dead, then over time everything came to naught. Today, the new generation does not even know what happened back in 1988.
A catastrophic earthquake in Armenia occurred 27 years ago, on December 7, 1988. It destroyed the city of Spitak in thirty seconds and caused severe destruction to the cities of Leninakan, Kirovakan and Stepanavan. In total, 21 cities, 350 villages and settlements were affected by the disaster. Only according to official figures, 25 thousand people died. One of several thousand volunteers who worked in the earthquake zone, Gennady Kirilenko shared his memories with Sputnik Armenia.
black months
We learned about the tragedy in Armenia in the morning at a lecture at Rostov State University. The Internet did not exist, there was too little information in the news, but rumors about the scale of the disaster spread instantly. In the afternoon, without any command from above, students and teachers lined up to donate blood. In the main building on Bolshaya Sadovaya, people carried canned food, jars of Don pickles, Azov bream, pasta and cereals, in general, everything that they had in store in the pantries of Rostov Khrushchev for a rainy day. And "black" then were not days - months and years of empty store shelves, coupons for oil, washing powder, sugar.
Everyone considered it their duty to help wounded Armenia at least somehow. The decision to go to the earthquake zone was born spontaneously, in the same place at a lecture. For several years, we, students of different faculties, traveled around the godforsaken corners of the international construction team, so we quickly gathered. Armenians, Russians, Dagestanis, Ukrainians, Chechens, Azerbaijanis, Abkhazians, Georgians… Who could have known then that in just a few years we would be separated by borders, and someone would look at each other through the sight of a machine gun.
Lost bus
University "Ikarus" could take about forty people, but there were five times more applicants. We had to weed out the people through a medical board - bespectacled, hypertensive patients and just nerds remained in Rostov.
Early in the morning, when rescue work was already in full swing in Armenia, we set off. All the food collected at the Russian State University was loaded into the luggage compartments of the bus. Behind us was a cargo ZIL of a military department with tents, tools, medical equipment. In the evening we reached the border with Abkhazia, where we spent the night in the bus. The first serious incident happened near Tbilisi - we lost ZIL. The truck driver fell behind the bus and got lost at the entrance to the city. We decided to wait for him at the Tbilisi bus station.
Now there are mobile phones, but then, according to the logic of our driver, all those who got lost had to look for each other at bus stations. On the windshield of the "Ikarus" there was a sign "Special flight Rostov-Spitak" attached, so as soon as we got off the bus, we were surrounded by drivers of the same old Georgian ikaruses, lions and paziks. We drove almost a thousand kilometers on Rostov fuel - the hoses of all gas stations along the way were tightened into a knot. We needed diesel. The Georgians silently dispersed and returned after a while, each with a canister of priceless fuel drained from their cars. And we stood, smoked and did not know what to do next. To go to Spitak without tents and tools seemed absurd to us.
Several nervous hours passed. It seemed that the entire Tbilisi bus station was looking suspiciously at our bus, which was in no hurry to go where help from all over the country flocked. The way out came by itself. On foot, in a shabby sheepskin coat, a hat with earflaps and with thick stubble on his face - like everyone else in those parts who mourns for the dead. I did not remember the name of this Armenian, who was on the bed-post to get home to the ruined Kirovakan. He approached us with a request to take him with him, and in five minutes we were already leaving towards Armenia. By the way, the ill-fated ZIL, having circled around Tbilisi, eventually left for Leninakan. I am sure that everything that we carried with us was not superfluous there either.
© Sputnik / Alexander Grashchenkov
Why do I hate the cold so much
When they say "an earthquake wiped the city off the face of the earth", this is about Spitak. Ruins, fittings, people black with grief, coffins on the streets, in the yards, the stadium, everywhere. It was very cold. There was a sweet, cloying smell in the frosty air. This is the streets of the former city, almost ankle-deep, spilled molasses from the tanks of the collapsed factory.
Builders, the military, and just those who survived the meat grinder warmed themselves round the clock around the fires. The commandant of the site gave us summer double tents, put us on allowance and divided into brigades. The place for the camp was found in the yard of the destroyed kindergarten. Toys, furniture, mattresses from cribs were scattered around. We lined the floors of the tents with them. We slept without undressing, four of us, so it was warmer, synchronously turning from side to side. Everyone woke up silvery from frost. Maybe after that I do not like the cold, winter and everything connected with it.
Igor Mikhalev
There were no problems with food and tools - at every intersection, or rather, where they were before December 7, 1988, there were field kitchens, canned food, boxes of butter, bread. About a week later, not far from us, a canteen appeared. Well, as a dining room - these were tables and benches hastily knocked together from a picket fence in the open. On the tables are a mountain of bowls, mugs, spoons. Nearby is a huge cauldron and the smell of pilaf. An elderly Uzbek fussed around him with a ladle. I asked who he was and how he got here. What he answered me very accurately reflected the essence of relations between people a quarter of a century ago.
You know, I was a kid when the same tragedy happened in Tashkent. I remember well how the entire Union was restoring our capital. And when it happened here, I thought that now it's my turn. I have a cauldron, a wife and children, so I took them all with me on the train and arrived in Spitak. The military gives us food and we feed everyone who is hungry. I couldn't do it any other way, you know?
last hope
The first object where our team worked was a garment factory. All the living, wounded and dead, who could be quickly found, were taken out on the very first day. We had to go through the rubble again in search of bodies not found. It is clear that there could no longer be living people there, in such a frost. We had nothing but hands, crowbars and shovels. Therefore, it was impossible to "untie" the reinforced concrete structures of the factory, woven into knots by the elements. Nevertheless, hour after hour we dismantled bales of fabrics, accessories, mangled sewing machines.
© Sputnik / Alexander Makarov
Builders from the Baltic States, crane operators from Ukraine, paratroopers from Ryazan worked nearby. And rescuers from Poland. At that time, we did not have any Ministry of Emergency Situations, special equipment, thermal imagers and other equipment with the SPETS prefix, which could quickly help find and save people. But the Poles had it. Bulgarians, jacks, some other devices. And dogs. It was they who accurately indicated the places where you need to look for people under the rubble. Come, sniff and sit down. So, you need to look exactly here.
That day we were dismantling the freight elevator shaft. In the morning the Poles came, three rescuers and a dog. The dog turned around and sat up. For the whole day, on a patch of three by three meters, we could only go one and a half or two meters deep. By dusk we reached and removed a piece of the ceiling of the mangled elevator. The body of a dead young girl was also found there. An old woman, all in black, came to the identification. Weepy eyes. On the day of the earthquake, her entire extended family went to work. And in the evening none of them returned home. And this girl was her granddaughter. And the last hope that at least someone survived ...
© Sputnik / Igor Mikhalev
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Spitak earthquake - a catastrophic earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 (according to the US Geological Survey - a magnitude of 6.8, followed by aftershocks of lesser magnitude), which occurred on December 7, 1988 at 10:41 Moscow time (11:41 local time) on northwest of the Armenian SSR.
Numerius Negidius, CC BY-SA 1.0Powerful tremors destroyed almost the entire northern part of the republic in half a minute, covering an area with a population of about 1 million people.
In the epicenter of the earthquake - Spitak - the strength of the shocks reached 11.2 points (on a 12-point scale).
Tremors were felt in Yerevan and Tbilisi. The wave caused by the earthquake went around the Earth and was recorded by scientific laboratories in Europe, Asia, America and Australia.
, public domain The earthquake disabled about 40% of the industrial potential of the Armenian SSR.
As a result of the earthquake, the city of Spitak and 58 villages were completely destroyed; the cities of Leninakan (now Gyumri), Stepanavan, Kirovakan (now Vanadzor) and more than 300 settlements were partially destroyed.
C.J. Langer. U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain According to official figures, 19,000 became disabled, at least 25,000 people died (according to other sources, up to 150,000), 514,000 people were left homeless.
In total, the earthquake covered about 40% of the territory of Armenia. Due to the risk of an accident, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant was stopped.
The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, MS Gorbachev, who was on a visit to the United States at that moment, requested humanitarian assistance and interrupted his visit, going to the devastated regions of Armenia.
Fed Govt, Public Domain All the republics of the USSR took part in the restoration of the destroyed areas.
111 countries, including Israel, Belgium, Great Britain, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, France, Germany and Switzerland, provided assistance to the USSR by providing rescue equipment, specialists, food and medicine. Assistance was also provided in the restoration work.
Alexander Makarov, CC BY-SA 3.0 Minister of Health of the USSR Yevgeny Chazov arrived in the republic. Providing assistance to the population was complicated by the fact that medical facilities were destroyed in the affected cities. For example, in the city of Spitak, the wounded were taken to the Bazum city stadium, where they provided medical assistance.
During the delivery of aid, Yugoslav and Soviet planes crashed. The Soviet aircraft was Il-76 from the regiment of military transport aviation stationed in the city of Panevezys (Lithuanian SSR) and taking off from Azerbaijan. The cause of the accident was an incorrect pressure setting at the transition level, as a result of which the aircraft crashed into a mountain.
Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Vazgen I delivered an address on the republican television.
On the hill of the cemetery, where the victims of the earthquake are buried, was built.
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Useful information
Spitak earthquake
arm. Սպիտակի երկրաշարժ)
also known as the Leninakan earthquake
arm. Լենինականի երկրաշարժ
Ratings and opinions
N. D. Tarakanov, retired major general, head of work to eliminate the consequences of the earthquake:
“Spitak turned out to be much worse than Chernobyl! In Chernobyl, you grabbed your dose and be healthy, because radiation is an invisible enemy. And here - torn bodies, groans under the ruins ... Therefore, our main task was not only to help and pull the living out of the rubble, but also to bury the dead with dignity. We photographed and recorded in the headquarters album all unidentified corpses and buried them under numbers.
When people who suffered from the earthquake returned from hospitals and hospitals, they began to look for their dead relatives and turned to us. We gave photographs for identification. Then we removed the identified ones from the graves and buried them in a human way, in a Christian way. This went on for half a year...
At the end of last year, when it was ten years since the tragedy, we visited Spitak and looked at its current miserable state. Armenians understand that with the collapse of the Soviet Union they lost more than anyone else. The allied program for the restoration of Spitak, Leninakan, Akhuryansky district, destroyed by the elements, collapsed overnight. Now they are completing what Russia and other republics of the USSR were building.”
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and Moscow provided substantial assistance to hundreds of families who lost their homes. They were placed in empty apartments from the resettlement fund, in hostels and even in elite hotels.
Memory
- Pour toi Arménie is a song written in 1989 by Charles Aznavour and Georges Garvarentz and recorded by a group of famous French artists. The song was written and recorded to help the victims of the 1988 Spitak earthquake. The Trema-EMI label sold over a million records of the single (on the other side was the song "They Fell" in memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide). The song was No. 1 on the SNEP singles chart (France) for 10 weeks and entered the Guinness Book of World Records as it was No. 1 from the first week. The video for the song was directed by Henri Verneuil.
In 1989, a coin of 3 rubles was issued in the Soviet Union, dedicated to the anniversary of the tragedy.
