The People

This is the second of a three part series to commemorate the twenty-second anniversary of the Armenian earthquake of December 7^th, 1988.

Part I can be found here. Part III can be found here.

The People

In any natural disaster, there is almost invariably loss of life. The forces of the earth care little for families or loved ones, jobs or who you owe money to. Avalanches, earthquakes, mud slides, wild fires see humans and animals as nothing more than soft obstacles that get in the way. As unforgiving as nature can be, and the idea that bodies are to be expected after large natural disturbances, humans can not forget the dead. A disaster the magnitude of the 1988 earthquake affects everyone; rich people, poor people, men, women, children, grandparents, soldiers, teachers, and everyone in between.

The most common estimate of the casualties of the earthquake that happened in 1988 counts approximately twenty-five thousand people dead. Another fifteen thousand were injured by falling debris or in the general pandemonium that followed. However the most sobering statistic was that over a half a million people were left homeless.ⁱ What makes homelessness so important after a natural disaster, is that it is a persistent problem. Not only does a family lose everything they have worked for their entire lives, their homelessness becomes a defining characteristic. “He used to be a teacher, but now he struggles just to feed his family. She used to own a store, but it was destroyed.” The psychological toll disasters take on those affected can never properly be measured in numbers.

Of those who died in the earthquake, children bore a disproportionate toll. Almost two-thirds of those killed during this radical restructuring of the landscape were children. In one school of 302 children, 285 (94%) were killed. The schools that were built during this time were simply unable to cope with such traumatic forces. Almost four hundred children or youth institutions were destroyed or damaged. In Spitak and Gyumri alone, 105 schools and kindergartens were destroyed. This statistic is alarming on its own, but when added that there there were only 131 schools in the two communities, the full scope of the tragedy is known.ⁱⁱ

While the loss of life is regrettable, and injuries are obvious so they can be taken care of fairly immediately, the issue of people who lost their homes in this tragedy is still being felt in Armenia today. In the city of Gyumri, official statistics from the Armenian government put the number of families still displaced by the earthquake at almost four thousand. Of those families, many are still living in the “temporary housing” provided by the Soviet Union two decades ago. After the earthquake, contractors from all the Soviet Republics except for Azerbaijan, and the international community were brought in to rebuild, which was only supposed to take two years. With the collapse of the Soviet Union reconstruction slowed dramatically with only only two thousand new apartments built between 1994-2003.ⁱⁱⁱ One of the major issues with the new apartments that are currently being built is that the government is giving out vouchers worth about $10,000 USD, but the average apartment sells for $12,000 - $15,000 and many people do not have the savings available to cover the remainder.

Living conditions in a Gyumri
apartment. ArmeniaNow

While this construction is occurring, people are still living in housing that is can only be called sub-standard, and that is an understatement. Since Spitak was obliterated, the original reconstruction was focused there and the living arrangements are decent and livable. Now Gyumri is the biggest concern. There are eighty-eight apartment blocs that are considered unsafe. Of those eighty-eight, ten are said to be extremely dangerous and may collapse at any minute. Unfortunately, these apartment blocs are not uninhabited. It is a sad fact that twenty years later, people are still living and trying to raise a family in apartments that have not been rebuilt, or repaired in any way, and are forced every day to hope and pray another disaster does not strike and bury their lives once again.^iv