Today is the 30th anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Spitak. 

On December 7, 1988, at 11:41 local time, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake wreaked havoc in Spitak, Gyumri, Stepanavan, and rural communities on the Spitak-Gyumri road.

Due to the devastating earthquake, 21 cities and districts, 342 villages were affected, 514 thousand people were left homeless, about 20,000 people were injured in various degrees, of which 12,500 people were hospitalized, the number of victims was 25,000 people. 

Despite Cold War tensions, a few days after the earthquake, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev formally requested humanitarian aid from the United States (for the first time since World War II). 113 countries sent significant amounts of humanitarian aid to the Soviet Union in the form of rescue equipment, search teams, and medical supplies, but clandestine donations and donations from non-governmental organizations were also part of international aid. 

Even today, 30 years after the earthquake, the concept of “disaster zone” exists in Armenia. according to various estimates, the number of homeless people exceeds 5-6 thousand, people have been living in dormitories for 30 years.