![]() "The reconstruction work continued in 1989 and '90. It was decided that the original appearance and layout of the village should be restored. Papoyan says "the whole Soviet Union, the whole world descended on the quake zone." Construction workers from Krasnodar were dispatched to Nalband to rebuild the village along with Russian, Italian, French, German, and Czech rescue workers and builders. that many families were left without breadwinners, without parents, and 85 residents became invalids." fires broke out burning up bodies - it's a sad story I cannot characterize in detail. "The earthquake's epicenter was right here at the train station, the entire community was destroyed, totally, nothing was left standing: the sovkhoz, the enterprises, the schools, were all gone, 320 residents were killed in the quake, including 112 in the middle school. Sitting in a makeshift office in a metal container, Papoyan spoke recently with RFE/RL. ![]() Nearly ten years after the earthquake, the mayor of Shirokamud, Albert Papoyan, still finds it difficult to recount what happened. Unlike Gyumri, where many buildings damaged or destroyed by the quake are still waiting for the wreckers' ball, not a single house was left standing in Shirokamud. The village is on the main east-west road between Spitak and the country's second largest city, Gyumri, known in Soviet times as Leninakan. The epicenter of the quake was in the mountain village of Shirokamud, referred to among its inhabitants by its old name Nalband. The cemeteries in this part of Armenia are new and large, filled with gravestones bearing life size, photo-engraved portraits of people killed in the quake, mothers and fathers, school-aged children, sometimes three generations from one family. And as in many other disaster situations, a lot of humanitarian aid was misappropriated yet no one has ever been brought to justice. Like the Chornobyl disaster two and a half years earlier, the earthquake contributed to exposing the harmful effects of the Soviet Unions' penchant for secrecy and its incapability to deal with extraordinary disasters.Īs in Chornobyl, a variety of after-effects of the earthquake persist. Prague, 17 March 1998 (RFE/RL) - Nearly ten years ago, on December 7, 1988, a massive earthquake rocked northwestern Armenia, killing some 50,000 inhabitants.
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