1988 Armenian earthquake

The 1988 Armenian earthquake, also known as the Spitak earthquake (

Seismologists thoroughly studied the effects of the Spitak event, including the mainshock and aftershock fault rupture mechanisms, and were on site setting up temporary seismometers before the end of 1988. Earthquake engineering experts scrutinized building construction styles and found fault in the poorly constructed apartments and other buildings that were built during the Era of Stagnation under the rule of Leonid Brezhnev. The cities of Spitak, Leninakan (Gyumri) and Kirovakan (Vanadzor) were greatly affected with large losses of life and devastating effects to buildings and other structures. A number of the smaller outlying villages away from the larger population centers were also severely affected.

Despite the tensions of the Cold War, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev formally asked the United States for humanitarian help within a few days of the earthquake, the first such request since the late 1940s. One hundred and thirteen countries sent substantial amounts of humanitarian aid to the Soviet Union in the form of rescue equipment, search teams and medical supplies. Private donations and assistance from non-governmental organizations also had a large part of the international effort. While transporting some of these supplies to the region, a Soviet aircraft carrying 9 crew members and 69 military personnel, and a transport plane from Yugoslavia, were both destroyed in separate incidents. In support of the relief effort, recording artists united to produce several music-related contributions for the victims of the quake. A song was produced by a duo of French composers (including Charles Aznavour) and a studio album that featured songs donated by mainstream rock bands was released from the Rock Aid Armenia effort by the British music industry.

Political background

Beginning with late 1987 the

The source of the event was a fault rupture 40 kilometers (25 mi) south of the Caucasus Mountains, a mountain range that has been produced by the convergence of the Arabian and the Eurasian tectonic plates. The range is situated along an active seismic belt that stretches from the Alps in southern Europe to the Himalayas in Asia. The seismicity along this belt is marked by frequent major earthquakes from the Aegean Sea, through Turkey and Iran, and into Afghanistan. Though the recurrence of seismic events in Armenia does not reach the high frequency that is seen in other segments of this zone, rapid crustal deformation there is associated with active thrust faulting and volcanic activity. Mount Ararat, a 5,137 m (16,854 ft) dormant volcano, lies 100 km (62 mi) to the south of the quake's epicenter in Turkey.^[15]

The earthquake occurred along a known 60 km (37 mi) thrust fault striking parallel to the Caucasus range and dipping to the north-northeast. Bruce Bolt, a seismologist and a professor of earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley, walked the length of the fault scarp in 1992 and found that the vertical displacement measured 1 m (3.3 ft) along most of the length with the southwest end reaching 1.6 m (5.2 ft).^[15] During the earthquake, the northeast-facing side of the Spitak section rode up and over the southwest-facing side.^[16]

Waveform modeling established that the faulting originated at a depth of 5 km (3.1 mi) with the epicenter on the Alavar thrust fault on the slopes of the

Some of the strongest shaking occurred in industrial areas with chemical and food processing plants, electrical substations, and power plants. The

Many buildings did not hold up to the shaking of the earthquake and those that did collapse often lacked any survival space, but lack of effective medical care and poor planning also contributed to the substantial scope of the disaster. Buildings that did not collapse featured well-maintained masonry and skeletal components that were joined together adequately in a way that allowed for the building to resist seismic waves. Most bridges and tunnels and other public infrastructure withstood the earthquake but hospitals did not fare well. Most collapsed, killing two-thirds of their doctors, destroying equipment and medicine, and reducing the capacity to handle the critical medical needs in the region.^[19]

The Soviet news media and government officials soon began to discuss the apparent substandard construction styles that had caused so many of Armenia's buildings to collapse. Gorbachev, in a TV interview several weeks after his expedited return from New York City, said that the concrete blocks had been built with more than enough sand but too little concrete, and suggested that the concrete had been stolen. Leonid Bibin, deputy chairman of the state building committee, stated that many newer homes collapsed as well and that he was beginning an investigation into the matter and that criminal charges would be brought. The official communist party newspaper Pravda said that poor construction, like other issues of neglect in the Soviet system, could be blamed on the Era of Stagnation from the era of Leonid Brezhnev.^[9]

A team of earthquake and engineering experts from the United States spent a period of time in Armenia in December 1988 and January 1989. The group, including a structural engineer who specialized in seismic-resistant designs, agreed that building inadequacies were the primary reason why the strong (but not huge) earthquake was so damaging, although the freezing temperatures also played a role in the unusually high death toll. The earthquake death toll was by far the highest worldwide in the 1980s

The three cities closest to the fault rupture experienced different levels of damage. Both Leninakan and Kirovakan were roughly equidistant from the shock, yet Leninakan had greater damage. This may be explained by a 300–400 m (980–1,310 ft) sedimentary layer that is present beneath the city. The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute's team compared building damage in each city and observed similar results when comparing stone buildings four stories or less in height, but for taller frame-stone buildings, 62% were destroyed at Leninakan while only 23% collapsed at Kirovakan. While on-site during aftershock monitoring, the US research team verified the presence of soil amplification effects when pronounced differences in readings were observed when compared with nearby rock sites. Uneven distribution of the seismic energy may have also contributed to the fluctuation in damage.^[23]

In late December the last of the survivors that were able to be extricated were pulled from the fallen buildings, rescue operations ceased, and the cleanup began, beginning with the destruction of buildings that were too heavily damaged to be repaired. Six friends were in the basement of a nine-story building relocating barrels when it came down around them on December 7. Their injuries were minor, but one person suffered a broken arm. They supposedly sustained themselves on the food supplies—fruit salad, pickles, and smoked ham—that were available in the basement for 35 days before their rescue in January, but this turned out to be a hoax.^[24][25]

Aftershocks

The area where Armenia lies is of interest to seismologists and geologists because of the relatively early stage of continental collision occurring there and because the earthquake's strong aftershock sequence and significant surface faulting presented scientists with an environment to study reverse faulting. Twelve days after the mainshock a French-Soviet team installed a temporary seismic network in the epicentral area to record aftershock activity (a separate expedition from the United States also visited the site). The initial portion of work included nearly a full week setting up the seismometers and optimizing their operation and, with that complete, two full weeks of continuous operation was then completed with twenty six seismometers covering an area over 1,500 km². The final stage concluded with seven weeks (through the end of February 1989) of continued monitoring with a reduced capacity of twenty units.^[26]

The instrumentation included ten smoked paper analog

The epicenters of the recorded aftershocks formed a relatively narrow 50 km (31 mi) band. On the east end the events were shallow while on the western side, where the majority of the larger aftershocks were concentrated, the hypocenters were up to 14 km (8.7 mi) deep. The shocks at the southeastern segment indicated right-lateral strike-slip movement along a nearly vertical fault and may have been related to the Alavar fault. Moving westward closer to the central segments though, a transition of the fault type was becoming apparent, where an almost equal distribution of reverse fault mechanisms was observed as the strike-slip type. The east-central segment coincided with the surface breaks between Spitak and Gekhasar, while the west-central portion's break was concealed under an anticline and was not visible at the surface. Along the western segments, the fault split into two branches with one to the southwest and the other to the northwest.^[27]

Liquefaction

Buildings and other structures were extensively damaged during the earthquake, but roadways and railways also experienced disturbances. Many case histories pertaining to liquefaction in sandy soil exist, but few exist with respect to gravel and gravelly sands. In certain situations, gravelly sands may liquefy in a similar fashion as saturated sands. The first well-documented case of liquefaction in gravelly sands was in regard to the 1983 Borah Peak earthquake in the United States. Several investigations of that event took place in the 1980s and early 1990s and the primary conclusions were that a critical condition for liquefaction to occur in that type of soil was the presence of a low permeable crust that did not allow pore water pressures to subside and that the assessment method and associated standard penetration test values used with sandy soils also applied to gravelly soils.^[28]

Three locations between Spitak and

A second air transport incident occurred the following day at Yerevan (capital of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic) when an Antonov An-12 from Yugoslavia crashed, killing all seven crew on board. The crash was blamed on the pilots' failure to properly adjust the altimeter following a miscommunication with the air traffic controllers.^[35]

A group of French recording artists and actors came together with the French writer and composer

Gorbachev set aside 5 billion rubles (about US$8 billion) in funds for a start on what would likely be a recovery cost that would exceed the cleanup bill for the 1986 nuclear and radiation accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine. While foreign doctors did assist with the Chernobyl incident, the Soviet relief effort after the earthquake was augmented by the largest foreign cooperation since World War II.^[34] That deluge of western aid was a byproduct of the disaster that may have had a positive effect on Soviet Union–United States relations. The cost of rebuilding would be a severe obstacle for Perestroika, Gorbachev's plan for economic restructuring. Another adverse effect of the disaster was that the Armenians were already distrustful of Gorbachev's dismissal of their claims to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which the Armenians had been contesting with neighboring Azerbaijan.^[9] The tensions between the two countries prior to when the earthquake struck heightened amid reports of festivities being held and celebratory messages arriving from Azerbaijan.^[37]

The world responded rapidly to the disaster in Leninakan and Spitak, with much of Europe sending

The French arrived in Armenia in the late evening on Friday, December 9, and relieved the exhausted Armenian workers who then returned to Yerevan.[39] Japan sent a monetary gift of $9 million while Italy had plans to build a prefabricated village for the victims, and West Germany offered to send more than a dozen heavy cranes. The Americans donated generously as well, with Washington dispatching eight official planeloads of official relief aid plus a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter from Italy. Private donations from the United States were also significant. Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca arranged for a fund drive, and in Chicago (one of five major Armenian population centers in the US) the community raised $800,000 and donated 9,000 kilograms (20,000 lb) of supplies.^[9]

American businessman and philanthropist

In February 1989 one hundred construction workers were assembling temporary housing for themselves in Leninakan with a plan to start on the local population's housing by the end of the month, though schools and factories were also on the list of facilities to be rebuilt. Deputy chairman of a city building and architecture council said that updated building codes like those in the United States were being drafted (along with a strict requirement that the new protocols be respected) and that the new buildings would be no taller than four stories and would be located away from areas with the highest seismic risk. Other officials decided that the town would be relocated several kilometers to the southwest.^[42]

As of July 1989, about $500 million in donations had been delivered to the Armenians from 113 countries. Most of those funds went into the initial relief work and medical care plus the beginning portion of the rebuilding phase. Yuri S. Mkhitarian, an Armenian State Building Committee official, gave an updated damage report that included some of the outlying communities away from the population centers stating that 342 villages were damaged and another 58 were destroyed. The negative effect the earthquake had on the economy of Armenia was apparent. Mkhitarian said that 130 factories were destroyed and 170,000 people were out of work. Officials acknowledged that the work to complete the rebuilding may take up to five years or longer, a supposition that more than doubled Gorbachev's estimate of two years. At that time 20 projects had completed the planning process and some had been approved and construction started. In Leninakan, there was a need for 18 new hospitals, 12 of which could be funded with the assistance of the republics of the Soviet Union, but foreign help would be required to build six additional facilities. Boris Karapetyan, director of earthquake studies at the Yerevan Polytechnical Institute, said of the difficult rebuilding process "Coordination is a major, major problem. This is a massive undertaking, and foreign involvement is both a necessary and a complicating factor. We need foreign assistance—and there is no doubt about that—but our friends do not know the local conditions and propose things that cannot or should not be built in an earthquake-prone region."^[43]

The Soviets and an American group of architects each devised separate outlines for rebuilding the town of Spitak. Following an invitation by the Soviets for a critique of their plan, the American proposal was ultimately accepted as the way forward. The new plan would deviate from Soviet styles that were found to be rigid and outdated and would mirror characteristics of the local culture. For many years following World War II the Soviets practiced a methodical top-down approach to urban planning and building, constructing a large number of uniformly built row style apartment units, and the Soviets plan for rebuilding Spitak did not diverge from that approach. The Soviet's grid plan road scheme was found to not take into account the hillside at the new city's location, and the American plan included finer details of how commercial centers and government facilities were grouped together in an open and communal style.^[44][45]

Gallery

Other events

The

• Earthquake (2016 film)
• FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force
• Geography of Armenia
• List of earthquakes in 1988
• List of earthquakes in Armenia
• Lord Byron School (Gyumri)
• Ministry of Emergency Situations (Russia)
• Out of the Ruins
• Urban Search and Rescue Virginia Task Force 1

References

Sources

• Cisternas, A.; Philip, H.; Bousquet, J. C.; Cara, M.; Deschamps, A.; Dorbath, L.; Dorbath, C.; Haessler, H.; Jimenez, E.; Nercessian, A.; Rivera, L.; Romanowicz, B.; Gvishiani, A.; Shebalin, N. V.; Aptekman, I.; Arefiev, S.; Borisov, B. A.; Gorshkov, A.; Graizer, V.; Lander, A.; Pletnev, K.; Rogozhin, A. I.; Tatevossian, R. (1989), "The Spitak (Armenia) earthquake of 7 December 1988: field observations, seismology and tectonics" (PDF),
  S2CID 4321102
• Dorbath, L.; Dorbath, C.; Rivera, L.; Fuenzalida, A.; Cisternas, A.; Tatevossian, R.; Aptekman, J.; Arefiev, S. (January 1992), "Geometry, segmentation and stress regime of the Spitak (Armenia) earthquake from the analysis of the aftershock sequence",
  doi:10.1111/j.1365-246x.1992.tb00860.x
• Verluise, Pierre (April 1995), Armenia in Crisis: The 1988 Earthquake,
  ISBN 978-0-8143-2527-8
• Wood, P.R.; Berrill, J.B.; Gillon, N.R.; North, P.J. (September 1993), "Earthquake of 7 December 1988, Spitak, Armenia report of the NZNSEE team visit of 1989" (PDF), Bulletin of the New Zealand National Society for Earthquake Engineering, 26 (3): 253–283,
  doi:10.5459/bnzsee.26.3.253-283
• Yegian, M.; Ghahraman, V.; Harutiunyan, R (March 1994), "Liquefaction and Embankment Failure Case Histories, 1988 Armenia Earthquake", Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, 120 (3): 581–596,
  doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9410(1994)120:3(581)

Further reading

• Najarian, L. M.; Goenjian, A. K.; Pelcovitz, D.; et al. (1996), "Relocation after a disaster: Posttraumatic stress disorder in Armenia after the earthquake", Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 35 (3): 374–383,
  PMID 8714327
• Pesola, G.; Bayshtok, V. & Kvetan, V. (1989), "American critical care team at foreign disaster: The Armenian experience", Critical Care Medicine, 17 (6): 582–585,
  S2CID 26419964
• Grigorova, L. F.; Gasparian, A. A. & Manukian, L. H. (1990), Armenia, December, 88, Yerevan (in Russian), Armenia: Hayastan
• Goenjian, A. (1993), "A mental health relief programme in Armenia after the 1988 earthquake. Implementation and clinical observations",
  S2CID 22113623
• Giel, R. (1991), "The psychosocial aftermath of two major disasters in the Soviet Union", Journal of Traumatic Stress, 4 (3): 381–392,
  S2CID 143536081
• Azarian, A. G.; Skriptchenko-Gregorian, V. G.; Miller, T. W. & Kraus, R. F. (1994), "Childhood trauma in victims of the Armenian earthquake", Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 24 (2): 77–85,
  S2CID 28309171
• Allan, R. (1989), "The Armenian earthquake – The UK response", Disaster Management, 1 (4): 10–17
• Abrams, J. I. (1989), "Detection and extrication in the Armenian earthquake", International workshop on earthquake injury epidemiology for mitigation and response, Baltimore, MD, pp. 435–449
• Pynoos, R. S.; Goenjian, A.; Tashjian, M.; et al. (1993), "Post-traumatic stress reactions in children after the 1988 Armenian earthquake", British Journal of Psychiatry, 163 (2): 239–247,
  S2CID 25581406
• Philip, H.; Rogozhin, E.; Cisternas, A.; Bousquet, J. C.; Borisov, B.; Karakhanian, A. (1992). "The Armenian earthquake of 1988 December 7: faulting and folding, neotectonics and palaeoseismicity". Geophysical Journal International. 110 (1): 141–158.
  ISSN 0956-540X
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spitak earthquake.

• M 6.8 - Armenia from the United States Geological Survey
• Earthquake Damage, the Armenian SSR, December 7, 1988 – National Geophysical Data Center
• On this day – 1988: Death toll rises in Armenian earthquake – BBC
• Rescue efforts underway after earthquake strikes the Soviet republic of Armenia – ABC News
• Armenian Earthquake Memorial at the Red Cross Bldg in Washington, D.C.

Out of the Ruins Documentary Film on the Armenian EarthquakeArchived June 18, 2016, at the Wayback Machine – dcmemorials.com

• Spitak 1988 Earthquake Archived November 14, 2013, at the Wayback Machine – Armenian National Survey for Seismic Protection
• In pictures: 25th anniversary of Armenian earthquake – BBC
• The International Seismological Centre has a bibliography and/or authoritative data for this event.
• Commemorative coin from the Soviet Union – 3 Roubles 1989