Claim that 1988 Spitak Earthquake was not a natural disaster, but explosion is from the genre of fairy tales

GYUMRI, DECEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS. In terms of seismic safety, Armenia’s Shirak province, particularly the city of Gyumri, are in a relatively good condition, which is connected with the quality of multi-apartment buildings that have been constructed recently and with the change in urban planning standards, Chief expert at the Seismic Protection Territorial Service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergei Nazaretyan said during the meeting with the Gyumri municipality representatives.

Commenting on the rumors according to which the 1988 earthquake was not a natural disaster, but an explosion, Mr. Nazaretyan said: “The claim that what had happened in 1988 was an explosion, not an earthquake, is from the genre of fairy tales. These rumors have nothing to do with reality. Earthquake has consequences that are typical to itself only, for example, epicenter depth. The epicenter of that earthquake was approximately 10 km. It was a natural earthquake. Detonation cannot cause aftershocks, and that aftershocks still continue and will continue”.

Presenting the magnitude of the Spitak earthquake, Sergei Nazaretyan said that the earthquake measured 9 degrees in Gyumri, while in Spitak it was 9-10 degrees. He said that 15 similar earthquakes happen around the globe every year. The Spitak earthquake caused a 37-km-long crack on the surface of the ground, the strong tremors lasted for about 35-40 seconds.

Sergei Nazaretyan said the Spitak earthquake is the best studied earthquake in the world. Immediately after the earthquake famous specialists of the Soviet Union have conducted research, leading specialists from 45 countries arrived in Armenia, and as a result of their studies it was possible to present the earthquake not only as epicenter-hypocenter, but also as processor.

4003 people were killed in Spitak as a result of the earthquake. “The number of victims in all settlements is known with the accuracy of one person, except Gyumri. 4003 people were killed in Spitak, but it was impossible to calculate the exact number in Gyumri. Later we again tried to calculate the number of victims with 5 different methods and came to a conclusion that it could not pass 17,000.The greatest pain was the loss of 4500 school-children”, he said.

Armenuhi Mkhoyan