ARMENIA: RESIDENTS STILL LIVING THE SPITAK EARTHQUAKE
EurasiaNet.org
Dec 6 2013
December 6, 2013 – 3:39am, by Gayane Abrahamyan and Anahit Hayrapetyan
Twenty-five years ago, a massive earthquake turned northern Armenia
upside down. Many survivors who still call the area home have had a
tough time putting the trauma behind them.
Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, bore much of the damage on
December 7, 1988, when a 7.0-Richter-scale earthquake struck the
region, with the epicenter in Spitak, 52 kilometers to the northeast.
The quake grabbed headlines worldwide and killed at least 25,000
people in the region. Thousands more were maimed and hundreds of
thousands left homeless.
“The earthquake in Gyumri continues,” said City Council member Levon
Barseghian. “For 25 years, we are living over and over again what
happened within 41 seconds.”
A stagnant economy, combined with failed governmental promises,
has hindered the ability of many to rebuild their lives. The city
has lost nearly half of its population since 1988. Labor migration
is the main reason why, locals say.
Today, Gyumri includes new buildings and residential districts, along
with a Russian military base. Yet, the Shirak Region, of which Gyumri
is the capital, has the country’s highest poverty rate at 46 percent,
a rate that exceeds that in other regions by at least 11 percent,
according to official statistics.
The lingering presence of semi-ruined housing helps make memories
of the 1988 quake hard to forget. Communist authorities promised to
restore Gyumri within two years; however, in the three years before
the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the government managed to build
only 5,628 apartments. Various international and Armenian foundations
have built 20,770 apartments since 1988, according to official data.
The Armenian government also has made attempts. In 2009, the state
launched a new program, which allotted 80 billion drams (some $200
million) to the construction of more than 2,000 apartments; 433 more
will be ready next year, officials say.
Frustration with the slow pace of rebuilding runs bitter and strong
in Gyumri. Not long after President Serzh Sargsyan first came into
power in 2008, Prime Minister Tigran Sarksian pledged that housing
for homeless families in the earthquake-affected zone “will finally
be resolved by 2013.”
“Where is that … solution?” mockingly asked 43-year-old Rita Babaian,
a mother of three who lives in one of the remaining shanties, known
as domiks.
Babaian claims that, during one of his campaign stops for the 2013
presidential vote, President Sargsyan responded to her question that
the work would take “just a little longer.” “A little longer – until
when? A new apartment comes, or death?” Babaian said.
The domic shanties, ad hoc housing seemingly assembled from scrap
metal and other scavenged materials, remain the starkest symbol of
the quake’s legacy. Wrapped in cocoons of smoke from wood-burning
stoves, Gyumri’s numerous shantytowns are estimated to house about
3.7 percent of the city’s 121,500 inhabitants.
One shanty dweller, 60-year-old Rita Grigorian, says she was promised a
new, permanent place to live, but that promise has gone unfulfilled for
25 years and counting. “We have lost hope,” said Grigorian, curled up
in bed from the cold and damp of the temporary, 10-square-meter metal
shelter in which she lives alone. “When they gave these temporary
houses, they told us to get along with them for two years.”
Grigorian knows her number for a new residence by heart — N1112,
which was supposed to come up for a new flat in 2011. The government
puts such delays down to technical difficulties.
“There are currently 433 homeless people on our lists [for housing]
who have documents [certifying them as earthquake victims], but there
are 3,500 more not on waiting lists,” said Albert Margarian, who
heads the regional urban development department that is overseeing the
reconstruction. “Many among them have just returned to Armenia [from
work abroad] and missed the registration deadlines, many others have
missing documents. Their housing issue will be solved in the future.”
While the housing muddle may not reflect well on the government,
officials contend that they have learned the lessons of the 1988
quake. In rebuilding, new construction regulations should ensure
that buildings in Gyumri, Spitak and the nearby town of Vanadzor can
withstand quakes that reach a magnitude of nine on the Richter scale,
claimed Sergei Nazaretian, an advisor to the director of the northern
branch of the National Center of Seismic Protection.
Eighty-eight residential buildings in Gyumri that survived the 1988
earthquake “are dangerous” and “urgently need fortification,” he
added. The buildings house some 7,000 people, Nazaretian said, but
no work has been done to strengthen their fortifications since 2007.
Margarian attributed the delay to a lack of governmental funds.
Earthquake-safety techniques now are taught in schools, with
training exercises held on each anniversary of the 1988 quake. Over
the past two years, the Red Cross also has instructed some 15,000
schoolchildren and 60,000 residents of Gyumri and 14 nearby villages
about emergency-response techniques and first-aid skills.
In Gyumri’s shantytowns, though, residents tend to be dismissive
of safety measures. “Unemployment and poverty are more terrifying”
than another earthquake, said Babaian. “The earthquake comes and ends
right away, while, this way, we are slowly dying.”
Editor’s Note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a freelance reporter and editor
in Yerevan.
Anahit Hayrapetyan is a freelance photojournalist based in Yerevan
and Berlin.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67839