The Spitak Earthquake was a tremor, measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale, which took place on December 7, 1988 at 11:41 local time (07:41 GMT/UTC) in the Spitak region of Armenia.
Local housing infrastruture (particularly schools and hospitals) performed poorly in the earthquake and this resulted in 25,000 lives lost. It has been estimated that if the earthquake had occurred 5 minutes later, children would have left their schools' unstable buildings. This short time delay could have saved many lives.
The entire city of Spitak was destroyed, and there was partial damage to the nearby cities of Leninakan (later renamed to Gyumri) and Kirovakan (later renamed to Vanadzor ). The tremor also caused damage to many surrounding villages.
Since most of the hospitals in the area were destroyed, and due to freezing winter temperatures, officials at all levels were not ready for a disaster of this scale and the relief effort was therefore not launched properly. The Armenian government let in foreign aid workers to help with the recovery in the earthquake's aftermath, and this was one of the first cases when rescue and relief workers from other countries were allowed to take part in relief works in the former Soviet Union.
External links
