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SPITAK 25 YEARS LATER: "WHEN ALL YOUR FAMILY IS (IN THE GRAVEYARD) HOW CAN YOU LEAVE?" - VIDEO
http://www.armenianow.com/society/features/50125/spitak_earthquake_reconstruction_kirk_krikorian_lo ri_province
THE SPITAK QUAKE | 06.12.13 | 11:52
NAZIK ARMENAKYAN
ArmeniaNow
By GAYANE MKRTCHYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
Like splashes of color on a snow-white canvas of Spitak stretching
on the slopes of Bazum and Pambak mountain chains stand 25-year-old
young districts each unique in its kind - Italian, German, Swiss,
Czech, Finnish, Norwegian, Russian, Uzbek, Estonian, and Tambov.
Enlarge Photo Sergey Sahakyan Enlarge Photo
The giant mountain skirts gracefully cling to the town. The only
surviving part of the once industrial titan Sugar Plant - the massive
tower- stands next to the river-like line of newly-built dwellings in
Spitak. The tower stands as a reminder of the devastating earthquake
of two and a half decades ago which interrupted the chronology of
the industrial town in Armenia's northern Lori province.
"It is the borderline dividing into before and after. Today's life
is completely different, without the former Spitak. That day the
feeling was that life was over. As I watched people extract their
possessions from under the ruins, I wondered why: 'Are they going
to continue living? How?' Who could have imagined that life would
go on... life takes its course and moves ahead," says teacher of
chemistry Lusya Sardaryan.
On December 7, 1988, the earthquake was a watershed boundary first of
all for human lives: 4,000 lives were lost in old Spitak, the great
industrial town was razed to dust; those left on this side of the
boundary had to find strength to restore their hometown wiped off
the earth.
Before the earthquake Spitak, with population of 18,400, was one of
the country's developed industrial and agricultural centers, where 14
industrial entities functioned; 4,000 became victims of the earthquake,
1,290 children became orphans, 753 people were crippled for the rest
of their lives.
Sergey Sahakyan, head of the regional social welfare department of
Spitak, says the textile plant only employed 4,000 people, while the
elevator manufacturing plant exported its production to 21 foreign
countries.
"In Yerevan the elevators in residential buildings you see today
were manufactured back then in Spitak. Our giant sugar manufacturing
plant built in 1947 by German captives was exclusive in the South
Caucasus by its capacity, the flour mill, the rubber technical goods
manufacturing plant, the shoe factory. By our industrial capacity we
were behind only Yerevan, Gyumri and Hrazdan... We had 200 million
rubles worth gross product volume. To have a better idea - 500,000
rubles were enough back then to build four 4-story buildings with
three entrances," Sahakyan tells about the wealth of Spitak from more
than two decades ago, or rather, as they say, before the earthquake.
"They would refer to Spitak as Armenia's little Texas," say residents
with affection. "The earthquake did not simply break, it wiped off
Spitak, with not a single surviving building, only stone and dust."
Math teacher Tamara Darchinyan recalls how that day (December 7,
1988) at that hour (around noon) she was reporting her home assignment
during literature class - "The Killed Dove" (a short novel by Armenian
writer Nar-Dos).
"We were on the second floor. As soon as it started, we all ran to
the door and were all screaming. It was our luck that the walls had
squeezed the door shut so it wouldn't open, and thank God, because
the corridor had collapsed completely," she recalls.
Sahakyan's wife and two daughters died in the earthquake. Only he
and his son survived.
"I was in my car, going to pick up my wife from the vocational school.
I heard an explosion, and thought it was the car wheel, next thing I
saw the sky went dark and for a minute or two there were only black
clouds, when the fog started to disperse very slowly I witnessed how
the school collapsed, everything around was breaking apart, falling
down... I could see our building on the horizon, it fell after the
second strike. Feeling extreme desperation and helplessness I ran
to my son's school and found him alive... we found my wife's body
on the eighth day, my daughters were buried under the ruins of our
house... in the epicenter the magnitude was 6 by Richter scale,
by the time it reached our houses it had doubled to 12, it hit
both ways - horizontal and vertical, while they generally hit only
horizontally. The ground had risen and cracked 1.5-2 meters wide,
the depth could not be seen," recalls Sahakyan.
Expert conclusions later revealed that the main reason for such
extensive damage was that the seismic risks all across the country had
been underestimated - up to 7-8 magnitude, while in Spitak it reached
10, in Stepanavan 9, Vanadzor 8-9. The special government-assigned
commission to look into the earthquake aftermath identified that
seismic resistance norms for construction had been violated, as was
its quality and technology, construction materials failed to meet
state standards.
Sahakyan is convinced that 80 percent of the human casualties fell
victims of poor construction.
"When we were lifting big concrete wrecks with a crane to take people
out from under the ruins, iron clamps remained hanging from the
crane crook, while the concrete would just fall off, that's what poor
quality construction it had been. To the contrary, there were some
buildings that had to be knocked down by explosives, so scrupulously
they had been built. There were 16 people at my dad's private house,
none of them had even a nosebleed..." he says.
Earthquake stories of Spitak residents are gloomy, fates are alike and
different at the same time; 53 people were never found, 60 percent
of the 4,000 victims were children. The heavy fog raised by the
quaking earth started to scatter, people started filling the gaps
of their empty lives, replacing the old with the new, but the scars
never completely healed and keep hurting even after all these years,
because of the irrevocable losses these people suffered.
"What's been lost is hard to restore. What can I say, it was a
disaster, it came and left, but we never completely got over it,
in our hearts we carry that cross, wishing next generations to never
experience anything like that," says Sahakyan.
They recall how in the evening of December 7 first rescue teams
arrived, among them Georgians, then Italians, the French, Russians...
The gate to new Spitak is marked by unique Varpetats district with its
220 double and three-room private houses put to exploitation in 2010.
During the more than two decades following the disaster the biggest
housing construction project (524 apartments) has been implemented by
American-Armenian benefactor Kirk Kerkorian's financial support. In
Spitak different countries have commissioned housing construction:
Switzerland (180 houses), Uzbekistan (230), Russia (43), Estonia (78);
Hayastan All-Armenia Fund has sponsored 110, and 145 more were funded
by the state budget of Armenia. In total, 1,769 permanent places of
residence (houses, apartments) have been built. Nonetheless, there
are around 1,000 families still facing a housing issue.
In the former high-capacity industrial town people live and work
struggling for survival today. The majority leaves for Russia as labor
migrants, come back in winter; the young leave with their families.
They are certain that if the post-independence privatization
process was implemented properly, they could have had workshops and
manufacturing entities today.
"The entire industrial capital was privatized and sold out cheap as
scrap metal. Iranian vehicles were loading and taking away machines,
and everything else, from Spitak every day. My daughter-in-law
had worked at the sugar manufacturing plant for 45 years, she said
the machines were unharmed by the earthquake, they could have been
restored and put to exploitation, while Armenia has now become a
sugar-importing country," tells Tamara Darchinyan.
Migration is a painful topic for Spitak residents, they did not
abandon their hometown after the disaster - left without a shelter,
grieving over lost family members and broken lives; thing are not
much better today, though, and people take their families and leave.
"However, those who are employed here, prefer earning less, but living
in their homes. Where to and how can we leave," wonders Sahakyan. Our
mentality is somewhat different, that's the thing. We have a hectare
of grave land, who would we leave it to? When all your family is there,
how can you leave?"
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.armenianow.com/society/features/50125/spitak_earthquake_reconstruction_kirk_krikorian_lo ri_province
THE SPITAK QUAKE | 06.12.13 | 11:52
NAZIK ARMENAKYAN
ArmeniaNow
By GAYANE MKRTCHYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
Like splashes of color on a snow-white canvas of Spitak stretching
on the slopes of Bazum and Pambak mountain chains stand 25-year-old
young districts each unique in its kind - Italian, German, Swiss,
Czech, Finnish, Norwegian, Russian, Uzbek, Estonian, and Tambov.
Enlarge Photo Sergey Sahakyan Enlarge Photo
The giant mountain skirts gracefully cling to the town. The only
surviving part of the once industrial titan Sugar Plant - the massive
tower- stands next to the river-like line of newly-built dwellings in
Spitak. The tower stands as a reminder of the devastating earthquake
of two and a half decades ago which interrupted the chronology of
the industrial town in Armenia's northern Lori province.
"It is the borderline dividing into before and after. Today's life
is completely different, without the former Spitak. That day the
feeling was that life was over. As I watched people extract their
possessions from under the ruins, I wondered why: 'Are they going
to continue living? How?' Who could have imagined that life would
go on... life takes its course and moves ahead," says teacher of
chemistry Lusya Sardaryan.
On December 7, 1988, the earthquake was a watershed boundary first of
all for human lives: 4,000 lives were lost in old Spitak, the great
industrial town was razed to dust; those left on this side of the
boundary had to find strength to restore their hometown wiped off
the earth.
Before the earthquake Spitak, with population of 18,400, was one of
the country's developed industrial and agricultural centers, where 14
industrial entities functioned; 4,000 became victims of the earthquake,
1,290 children became orphans, 753 people were crippled for the rest
of their lives.
Sergey Sahakyan, head of the regional social welfare department of
Spitak, says the textile plant only employed 4,000 people, while the
elevator manufacturing plant exported its production to 21 foreign
countries.
"In Yerevan the elevators in residential buildings you see today
were manufactured back then in Spitak. Our giant sugar manufacturing
plant built in 1947 by German captives was exclusive in the South
Caucasus by its capacity, the flour mill, the rubber technical goods
manufacturing plant, the shoe factory. By our industrial capacity we
were behind only Yerevan, Gyumri and Hrazdan... We had 200 million
rubles worth gross product volume. To have a better idea - 500,000
rubles were enough back then to build four 4-story buildings with
three entrances," Sahakyan tells about the wealth of Spitak from more
than two decades ago, or rather, as they say, before the earthquake.
"They would refer to Spitak as Armenia's little Texas," say residents
with affection. "The earthquake did not simply break, it wiped off
Spitak, with not a single surviving building, only stone and dust."
Math teacher Tamara Darchinyan recalls how that day (December 7,
1988) at that hour (around noon) she was reporting her home assignment
during literature class - "The Killed Dove" (a short novel by Armenian
writer Nar-Dos).
"We were on the second floor. As soon as it started, we all ran to
the door and were all screaming. It was our luck that the walls had
squeezed the door shut so it wouldn't open, and thank God, because
the corridor had collapsed completely," she recalls.
Sahakyan's wife and two daughters died in the earthquake. Only he
and his son survived.
"I was in my car, going to pick up my wife from the vocational school.
I heard an explosion, and thought it was the car wheel, next thing I
saw the sky went dark and for a minute or two there were only black
clouds, when the fog started to disperse very slowly I witnessed how
the school collapsed, everything around was breaking apart, falling
down... I could see our building on the horizon, it fell after the
second strike. Feeling extreme desperation and helplessness I ran
to my son's school and found him alive... we found my wife's body
on the eighth day, my daughters were buried under the ruins of our
house... in the epicenter the magnitude was 6 by Richter scale,
by the time it reached our houses it had doubled to 12, it hit
both ways - horizontal and vertical, while they generally hit only
horizontally. The ground had risen and cracked 1.5-2 meters wide,
the depth could not be seen," recalls Sahakyan.
Expert conclusions later revealed that the main reason for such
extensive damage was that the seismic risks all across the country had
been underestimated - up to 7-8 magnitude, while in Spitak it reached
10, in Stepanavan 9, Vanadzor 8-9. The special government-assigned
commission to look into the earthquake aftermath identified that
seismic resistance norms for construction had been violated, as was
its quality and technology, construction materials failed to meet
state standards.
Sahakyan is convinced that 80 percent of the human casualties fell
victims of poor construction.
"When we were lifting big concrete wrecks with a crane to take people
out from under the ruins, iron clamps remained hanging from the
crane crook, while the concrete would just fall off, that's what poor
quality construction it had been. To the contrary, there were some
buildings that had to be knocked down by explosives, so scrupulously
they had been built. There were 16 people at my dad's private house,
none of them had even a nosebleed..." he says.
Earthquake stories of Spitak residents are gloomy, fates are alike and
different at the same time; 53 people were never found, 60 percent
of the 4,000 victims were children. The heavy fog raised by the
quaking earth started to scatter, people started filling the gaps
of their empty lives, replacing the old with the new, but the scars
never completely healed and keep hurting even after all these years,
because of the irrevocable losses these people suffered.
"What's been lost is hard to restore. What can I say, it was a
disaster, it came and left, but we never completely got over it,
in our hearts we carry that cross, wishing next generations to never
experience anything like that," says Sahakyan.
They recall how in the evening of December 7 first rescue teams
arrived, among them Georgians, then Italians, the French, Russians...
The gate to new Spitak is marked by unique Varpetats district with its
220 double and three-room private houses put to exploitation in 2010.
During the more than two decades following the disaster the biggest
housing construction project (524 apartments) has been implemented by
American-Armenian benefactor Kirk Kerkorian's financial support. In
Spitak different countries have commissioned housing construction:
Switzerland (180 houses), Uzbekistan (230), Russia (43), Estonia (78);
Hayastan All-Armenia Fund has sponsored 110, and 145 more were funded
by the state budget of Armenia. In total, 1,769 permanent places of
residence (houses, apartments) have been built. Nonetheless, there
are around 1,000 families still facing a housing issue.
In the former high-capacity industrial town people live and work
struggling for survival today. The majority leaves for Russia as labor
migrants, come back in winter; the young leave with their families.
They are certain that if the post-independence privatization
process was implemented properly, they could have had workshops and
manufacturing entities today.
"The entire industrial capital was privatized and sold out cheap as
scrap metal. Iranian vehicles were loading and taking away machines,
and everything else, from Spitak every day. My daughter-in-law
had worked at the sugar manufacturing plant for 45 years, she said
the machines were unharmed by the earthquake, they could have been
restored and put to exploitation, while Armenia has now become a
sugar-importing country," tells Tamara Darchinyan.
Migration is a painful topic for Spitak residents, they did not
abandon their hometown after the disaster - left without a shelter,
grieving over lost family members and broken lives; thing are not
much better today, though, and people take their families and leave.
"However, those who are employed here, prefer earning less, but living
in their homes. Where to and how can we leave," wonders Sahakyan. Our
mentality is somewhat different, that's the thing. We have a hectare
of grave land, who would we leave it to? When all your family is there,
how can you leave?"
From: Baghdasarian