Armenia remembers devastating earthquake
Published 07 December, 2008, 07:01
Twenty years ago Armenia suffered one of the most destructive earthquakes in Earth's history. At least 25 thousand people were killed, while hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Some of the settlements at the epicenter of the quake were wiped off the planet's surface.
On December 7, 1988 it took just a few minutes for the earthquake to leave a trail of destruction through parts of the country.
The town of Spitak, north of Armenia's capital Yerevan, was reduced to ruins. Amaliya Asartyan, who survived, has spent the last two decades in limbo her life. Both her daughters were killed in the disaster and her son has never been found.
“We were told that Arsen was taken to hospital in Tbilisi, then to Moscow. But we didn’t find him there. We didn’t know what to do. We just hope that one day he’ll knock on the door and come back,” Amaliya said.
Apart from Spitak, which was leveled to the ground, around 300 villages and several towns were wiped out. It’s also thought that if the tremor had occurred five minutes later, children would have already left their schools and the short delay could have saved many lives.
Despite occurring during the last throes of the Cold War, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called the international community for humanitarian aid – the first such appeal since the Second World War.
Armine Nikogosyan lost her legs in the disaster and now heads a local school for the disabled. She lives in the nearby city of Gyumri, formally known as Leninakan, which also bore the brunt of the quake.
Armine was twenty one at the time, and she spent three days trapped under the rubble next to her daughter whom she was powerless to save. Her other child also died.
“When the earthquake happened at first I thought it was an attack,” she remembers.
“I was trapped for three days and could only figure out whether it was day or night from the voices of rescuers coming from above. At night there was silence”.
Back in Spitak, the aftermath of the disaster is still evident. Despite international aid, around 1,300 families still live in temporary homes.
“It’s awful for our children – it’s always damp and there’s no place for them to play,” said Siranush Bagdasaryan, whose family is among those forced to live in slum-like conditions.
“We’ve been living like this for the past twenty years. I’m old and ill. I just want my children to have normal lives”.
The city's mayor Gagik Saakyan says 5,000 families were made homeless and despite international help, it wasn’t enough to provide everyone with a decent home:
“The whole world helped us, and we thank everyone for their assistance. But there’s still a lack of funding. I hope that we’ll achieve that everyone will have a good home in five years”.
As Armenia still continues to recover, experts say that the poorly built support structures of the buildings left them vulnerable to damage.
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