On December 7, , an earthquake shattered the north of Soviet Armenia. Three decades later, the region is yet to recover from a disaster that killed more than 25, people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. The city is Armenia's second-largest, after the capital, Yerevan. The quake lasted just 20 seconds, with a magnitude of 6.
Of 78 high-rise apartment blocks in the city, just six survived the quake. Gorbachev declared, "In my entire life, I've never seen one-thousandth of the suffering I've seen here. Unlike previous carefully censored disasters in the Soviet Union, the earthquake's aftermath took place under the glare of a newly unleashed Soviet media, thanks to Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, or "openness. Following the quake, the collapse of the buildings was so bad that those who lived there in the past and rushed to the scene to assist, could not recognize their neighborhoods.
More than 15, of its residents were killed and 75 percent of the city said to be destroyed. Block after block of eight- to ten-story buildings, built during the Soviet regime with inadequate concrete and steel reinforcements, lay in rubble. Even though a Russian military base was located there, it lacked the heavy equipment and cranes needed to move the rubble to search for possible survivors. Hayk Demoyan. Former head of the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Hayk Demoyan was a year-old school boy living with his family in Leninakan at the time.
He had gone off to school with his brother that Wednesday morning with the warning of his mother echoing in his ears that she had had a nightmare and that the two boys should be extra careful at school that day. Demoyan took notes of what happened during the next several days and shared them with me recently.
He was in his shop class at when the school began shaking, and his instructor immediately knew what was happening. The sounds coming from outside were frightening and impossible to forget.
On arriving home, he found that all members of his immediate family — his parents, brother and sister — had survived. But so many distant relatives had not, including his two cousins who were trapped beneath a building and spoke to rescuers for two days, before they died. Anahit Harutyunyan was only 5, living with her parents and sister. The destruction in Spitak was even worse. The city was virtually destroyed in the quake, and a third of its 15, residents killed.
The roads in and out of the city were rendered impassable and those fortunate enough to be rescued from collapsed structures could not be transported to Yerevan or hospitals outside of the epicenter. It took more than a week for an organized relief effort to mobilize, and in the interim many survivors slept outside in the December cold.
They were walking over bodies. Even though hundreds of relief workers rushed to the scene to assist in the recovery effort, the lack of power tools and heavy equipment hampered their efforts. An Armenian man who was found digging with his fingers and hands was told by a doctor that if he continued to dig that way, he risked amputation.
For those fortunate enough to be pulled from the rubble, kidney failure was an immediate concern. When a person is trapped under concrete or debris, their blood supply will continue to flow to their brain but not their kidneys and lower extremities. John Simourian playing football at Harvard. So, realizing that time was of extreme essence that numerous lives of victims who had been rescued from collapsed buildings hung in the balance, Armenians everywhere began to rally.
Only a trickling few in the Diaspora had given much time or money to a Homeland still caught in the Soviet grip but the emergency presented by the earthquake was something different. The horrific impact of the earthquake was being broadcast every day by CNN and the major television networks and it gave rise to countless frantic conversations in numerous homes of Armenians across America and elsewhere.
One of them was at the Lincoln, Mass. In Dover, Delaware, the U. Constitution is unanimously ratified by all 30 delegates to the Delaware Constitutional Convention, making Delaware the first state of the modern United States. Less than four months before, the Constitution was signed by 37 of the original Early in the morning, Indonesian forces launch a massive invasion of the former Portuguese half of the island of Timor, which lies near Australia in the Timor Sea. The Portuguese departed East Timor in August , and Indonesian troops soon began infiltrating the border from The first execution by lethal injection takes place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.
Charles Brooks, Jr. On December 7, , at around p. The attack killed more than 2, naval and military Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Having spied the Pacific Ocean for the first time a few weeks earlier, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark cross to the south shore of the Columbia River near modern-day Astoria and begin building the small fort that would be their winter home.
The supplies included three kidney dialysis machines to help victims crushed by collapsing buildings who experienced kidney failure. It was a message of peace. Red Cross flights brought materials from Eastern and Western Europe, and Britain sent firemen and rescue experts as well as two planes with more than 50 tons of food and medical supplies.
International media reports noted criticism of the Soviet Union for its slow response and lack of preparedness. The country had no disaster contingency plans and rescue efforts were disorganized, which led to more deaths.
A lack of cranes hindered rescue efforts in the days after the Armenian earthquake. Despite the international relief efforts, the earthquake zone is still considered a disaster zone, and rebuilding has been slow, with recovery hampered by the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent war with Azerbaijan.
Even decades later, about victims of the earthquake remain living in what was intended to be temporary, makeshift housing. Mental health studies have shown that many of the earthquake survivors still live with post-traumatic stress disorder. The earthquake left deep scars on the land, as well as on the lives of survivors.
Today in Armenia, Dec. Post-earthquake studies have revealed that roughly once every 50 years, Armenia can expect an earthquake exceeding VII on the Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik MSK scale, which evaluates the severity of ground shaking, somewhat similar to the Modified Mercalli scale, and suggested that building code standards should be improved.
In the seismic zoning maps were redrawn for the entire country, and in , and again in , the building codes were strengthened. All rights reserved.
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