A strong earthquake hit Tajikistan 70 years ago. The landslides that came down as a result of the cataclysm covered more than 30 settlements and buried about 30 thousand people alive. Information about the tragedy was classified by the Soviet authorities so as not to overshadow the 70th anniversary of Joseph Stalin.
On July 10, 1949, a strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale occurred in the vicinity of the large village of Khait in the Tajik SSR. Its source was located at a depth of about 20 km. Tremors were felt in this area two days earlier, after which the showers fell. As a result, the loose soil on the mountain slopes was saturated with water. This provoked a landslide and led to tragic consequences.
Due to foreshocks - "small" earthquakes that occurred before the main one - a landslide occurred in the Yasman River valley. Collapsed 2.5 million cubic meters of loose soil. Landslides and rockfalls were recorded along the northern slope of the Takhty ridge towards the Surkhob River. The Garm-Khait highway was filled up. Small landslides took place in the valleys of the Yarkhich and Obi Kabud rivers. In the Jirgatal region, cracks began to appear in the buildings. There have been cases of building corners falling out. In the upper reaches of the Khait Gorge, a part of the granite dome was chipped off by a seismic shock along a vertical crack.
As a result, a huge mass of rocks and loess - loose soil of light yellow color fell into the valley.
Monument to the victims of the earthquake (July 10, 1949) in the village of Khait, Rasht region / Georgy Zelma / RIA Novosti.
According to scientists, the Khait earthquake, in addition to the appearance of massive landslides and landslides, caused the formation of ground flows - "earth avalanches", which have an intermediate character between landslides and mudflows. This happened due to the fact that in the Obi-Dara-Khauz gorge there were three dammed lakes: one in the upper reaches of the gorge, with an area of 350 thousand square meters, and two small shallow lakes.
“First there was an earthquake on July 8th. There were victims, but there were not many of them, - said the surviving witness of the tragedy, Eshoni Davlatkhuja. - On July 10, the earthquake was repeated, but with a force several times greater. The noise, rumble and rattle were supplemented by a hurricane wind, from which the trees bent their crowns to the ground, broke, and most of them were uprooted. Hundreds of people died in those few minutes. And a little later stones, trees and earth, mixed with river water into a viscous porridge, covered Khait."
In addition to Khait, almost all buildings were destroyed in 23 settlements. In the epicenter, the strength of the earthquake reached 9-10 points. The shocks were felt so much that people could not stand on their feet and fell.
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The memoirs of another eyewitness are given in Batyr Karryev's book "Disasters in Nature: Earthquakes":
“There was a sudden vertical shock accompanied by a hum. In an instant, all the buildings in Hait collapsed. Dust rose from landslides from the mountains, the whole area was clouded with haze, immediately darkened. The car, which was on the way from Hait to Sairone, was thrown up, and the passengers were thrown out of the body on the way to the side.
The U-2 plane that had just landed was thrown and wobbled."
Tajik sources also cite other evidence from which it follows that on the eve of the tragedy, an alarming situation was created by unusual behavior of animals. Roosters sang loudly and often, dogs ran for no reason from place to place and howled, cats rushed and meowed, donkeys screamed almost incessantly, and pigeons flew in the night sky. According to eyewitnesses, the sensation of vibrations in the ground was like pulling a carpet from under your feet.
“The area is covered with haze,” notes Karryev. - Against the background of the continuing vibration of the soil and the incessant hum, an additional sound appeared, similar to the grinding of stones against each other, which seemed to be coming from afar. It grew rapidly. In a few moments, a dark-colored mass with a height of 100-150 meters arose, rapidly moving to the village of Khait from the side of the Obi-Dara-Khauz gorge. This conglomerate of stones, water and mud fell on the sleeping Khait, burying 25 thousand people alive under it. On the site of the village, a blockage, one wide and about 20 km long, was formed. The total number of buried sites was 33”.
Here is how the central newspaper of the republic "Communist of Tajikistan" wrote about the earthquake in its July 15, 1949 issue:
“During July 8 and 10, Tajikistan was hit by two strong earthquakes with an epicenter in the mountains at a distance of 190 kilometers northeast of the city of Stalinabad.
Several aftershocks were observed in Stalinabad. The strongest, with a strength of 6.5 points, was felt on July 10 at 9 hours 43 minutes 11 seconds local time. There was no destruction in the city. Repeated, weaker tremors, as is usually the case after earthquakes, continued for several days. On July 12, the tremors were much weaker than on July 11. On July 13 and 14, further attenuation of the shocks was noted."
If you believe the book "TASS is authorized to … keep silent" by Nikolai Nikolayev, the Soviet authorities decided to classify the disaster so as not to darken the 70th anniversary of Joseph Stalin. This material contains the story of a certain driver Iskander, a local resident, who during the earthquake served in the army, and after demobilization, not knowing what had happened, tried to return home:
“I came to Garm, and then, they say, is impossible. There was an earthquake and the mountains converged. There were many bad houses in Garm too. Everyone is afraid and sleeps in tents.
There is a barrier on the road. No one is allowed into either Khait or Jirgital. I was a shepherd before the army. I know all the roads. I bought cakes at the bazaar, raisins, took some water and in the morning went through the mountains. In the evening he came, but the city was gone. Only stones and earth. I don’t know anything. The river flows completely different. There are no houses, no horses, no yaks, no trees. There are not even birds! I cried, cried for a long time, and then went the straight road to Garm. In the morning I came to the barrier. They took me to the police. They asked for a long time. And they said: everything that I saw is a big secret, a military secret. I was a member of the Komsomol and signed a paper that I will be silent."
Moscow responded quickly enough to what happened in Tajikistan.
To help the victims, ambulances were transferred from the neighboring Central Asian republics. In addition, Academician Grigory Gamburtsev was sent to the scene and instructed to create a complex seismological expedition of the Institute of Physics of the Earth of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Until the collapse of the USSR, the Garm geodynamic testing ground worked in Tajikistan. 15 seismic stations operated on its territory. Many residents from the affected area were relocated to the Vakhsh valley.
Dmitry Okunev