The deadliest earthquake in Armenia is the most terrible tragedy of 1988

This terrible earthquake began on December 7, 1988 at 11 o'clock in the afternoon. Seismic stations in Armenia and other nearby countries recorded several tremors of destructive force. Unable to realize what is happening, the Armenian capital lost its telephone connection with Spitak, Leninakan and other cities and towns of the republic. In an instant, almost the entire northern part of Armenia was silent - 40% of the entire country with a million population.

But 7 minutes after the earthquake, a military radio station unexpectedly appeared on the air, thanks to which, in plain text, Junior Sergeant Ksenofont Alexander said that the Leninakan population needed medical help for a long time, since the city was subjected to very large damages, resulting in too many wounded and dead. It sounded like a terrible SOS signal!

As in the time of the Chernobyl disaster, the authorities remained silent for a long time. They, as always, pretended that they were trying to comprehend what was happening and take the right measures, and, understanding the scale of the disaster, did not want to realize their helplessness. And the trouble at this time did not wait for their comprehension: at this time it was necessary as quickly as possible to provide assistance to the victims, to dismantle the rubble and save hardly any living people.

In addition, the street was winter, and thousands of people were left without shelter, clothing, water and food. And just imagine that only towards evening the radio reported with a scant report that an earthquake occurred in the morning in Armenia. Why meager? Because it did not say a word about the scale of the catastrophe, nor about the approximate number of dead and wounded.

But still it must be acknowledged that the plane, along with the surgeons and medicines on board, flew out the same day from Vnukovo airport. Moving to a helicopter in Yerevan, the brigade was in the evening at Leninakan. Completely assess and understand the scale of the disaster arrived could only in the morning, when the first rays of the sun ran through the ruins and bodies of the dead. Everything was plowed, broken, as if someone with his huge hand tried to mix the city with the land. Leninakan was no more - in its place - ruins and corpses.

Nearby villages and small towns also suffered from an earthquake. Everywhere you could see only piles of rubble and walls with empty eye sockets of windows. And only the day after the earthquake in Armenia in 1988 destroyed part of the country, helicopters and planes with essentials began to arrive. The wounded were taken from Leninakan and sent to Yerevan hospitals.

Many Soviet republics came to Armenia's help . Arrived about 50 thousand builders and several dozen medics. In that terrible month, the mass media have not given any data on the number of victims in Armenia. And only after 3 months the Council of Ministers provided the journalists with official statistics stating that the earthquake in Armenia in 1988 destroyed 21 towns and 350 settlements, among which 58 were completely destroyed and became unsuitable for life. The dead counted more than 250 thousand people and the same number of wounded. More than 17% of the total housing stock of the country was destroyed: 280 schools, 250 hospitals, several hundred pre-school institutions and 200 enterprises were unsuitable for exploitation. In the end, 500 thousand people were left homeless.

It should be said that Mother Teresa, who was famous for the whole world for her charity, did not stay away from the tragedy either. She periodically brought clothes and medicines needed to save people who were in this terrible trouble.

But the fraternal restoration of Armenia was adversely affected by the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a result of which construction gradually began to subside. As a result, the once blooming edge of Armenia turned into a desert zone: hundreds of thousands of inhabitants left those places, leaving ruins and bitter memories in their native "homes."

The earthquake in Armenia was reminiscent of itself, its ruins, for another ten years and even now the country has not completely recovered from the consequences of the tragedy. After all, about 18 thousand people still live in wooden huts, completely losing faith in the fact that the government has not forgotten about them.