YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s top seismologist is ruling out the possibility that the February 13 earthquake that hit Yerevan and the subsequent aftershocks were triggered by a biological weapon – a hypotheses which was put forward on social media.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations Seismic Protection Service chief Sos Margaryan said at a news conference that the earthquakes are tectonic tremors conditioned by Armenia’s geographic location on a seismic active zone.

“The given case was a magnitude 4,7 earthquake, which is a moderate intensity one,” he said, referring to the earthquake that rattled the Armenian capital on February 13. 

“It’s close to the Yerevan Fault. I assure you, there can’t even be any talk about biological or any other kind of weapons, because this [fault] is a known source to us. It is even reflected in the seismic resistance construction requirement maps as a hazard zone. The 1937 Parakar earthquake was also close to this fault. What happened was a completely natural phenomenon,” he said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan