This earthquake, the most terrible for Armenia, began in the afternoon of December 7, 1988 at exactly 11 hours 41 minutes. Seismic stations in Armenia itself and a number of neighboring republics recorded tremors of unprecedented strength. Still no one could understand anything about what had happened, but suddenly the telephone connection of the Armenian capital with Leninakan, Spitak and a number of other small towns and villages was cut off. The entire north of Armenia has practically become silent, and this is 40 percent of the entire territory of the republic with a population of one million people.
Only seven minutes after the start of the earthquake, a military radio station suddenly started working on the air. The radio operator, junior sergeant Alexander Ksenofontov, in plain text (which had never happened before in Soviet practice) said that the population of Leninakan urgently needed medical assistance in the city, there was a lot of destruction, helicopters were needed to take out the wounded. It was a real SOS signal!
And again, as during the Chernobyl disaster, the authorities remained silent for a long time. They allegedly tried to comprehend the terrible messages and understand the situation, so as not to sow panic ahead of time. And the trouble, meanwhile, required more than just understanding the situation: it was necessary to urgently provide assistance to the wounded, dismantle the rubble and free those buried under them. In addition, thousands of people were left homeless, water and food, and it was winter outside. Only in the evening did the radio briefly report on the earthquake in Armenia. At the same time, neither its scale nor the number of victims was reported.
True, it should be admitted that the first plane of the USSR Ministry of Defense, together with military field surgeons and medicines, took off from the Vnukovo airport on the same day. In Yerevan, military medics boarded a helicopter and landed in Leninakan two hours later. They sat down late in the evening and in complete darkness. Not a single light shone below, and it seemed strange, where did the living city go, where are its houses, streets, squares, squares? But there was no electricity in the city, just as there was not a single whole house! - instead of them mounds of red tuff, rubble, concrete, brick, glass and the remains of furniture. Shouts and groans were heard from all sides. Men with rare lanterns climbed these mounds, shouting the names of their wives and children and looking for their lost relatives. From time to time in the darkness, the headlights of the ambulances could be seen, which were picking up the wounded. But where to take them?
At the first rays of the morning sun, the arrivals could assess the scale of the destruction. Over the city, as if someone had detonated a powerful shell, all the houses fell apart like houses of cards. Everything was broken, plowed, dug. The city of Leninakan ceased to exist. Instead, heaps of ruins.
They did not give anything comforting and trips to nearby villages: the earthquake affected vast areas. There were rubble everywhere, and very rarely were standing walls with empty window sockets. Then telegrams were sent to Moscow, reporting significant destruction and the need to urgently organize assistance. Only on the second day after the earthquake, Yak-40 planes with blankets, tents, warm clothes and food began to arrive in the destroyed Leninakan. From here they took the wounded and sent them to Yerevan.
On December 11, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev with his wife flew to Yerevan. The leadership of the republic informed him about the situation, the scale of destruction and the number of victims. He expressed condolences to the families of the victims and promised to help.
Following M. S. Gorbachev, the then Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N. I. Ryzhkov. He went from Yerevan to the crash site, traveled around many districts. Actually, his visit was the beginning of the restoration work.
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First of all, it was necessary to give people who had lost their homes, shelter, warmth, clothing and food. A collection of humanitarian aid was announced throughout the country. At that time, many Soviet republics responded to the aid of the affected Armenia. Builders (about 45 thousand), rescuers, doctors arrived. But the arrivals had to be accommodated somewhere, canteens should be organized for them.
In December 1988, none of the media published accurate data on the number of victims in Armenia. With all M. S. Gorbachev made public only three months later, the Council of Ministers finally organized a press conference and gave the journalists official statistics. The earthquake affected 21 cities and regions, as well as 350 villages - of which 58 were completely destroyed. About 25 thousand people died, almost the same number were wounded and maimed. About eight million square meters of living space were destroyed, that is, 17 percent of the total housing stock of the republic. 280 schools, 250 health care facilities, hundreds of kindergartens, about 200 enterprises turned out to be in disrepair and unusable. Half a million people were left without a roof over their heads.
Naturally, the unclean people did not fail to take advantage of the confusion. The police were forced to repeatedly use weapons against those who tried to remove precious jewelry from the dead people, who took away the surviving goods from the destroyed shops. Still, there were many more honest people who tried to help people in trouble for free.
Foreign states did not stay away from the tragedy. Mother Teresa, world famous for her charitable work, brought medicines and clothes. Together with her came the sisters of mercy, who immediately got involved in the work to save people in trouble.
French singer of Armenian origin Charles Aznavour also sent parcels with humanitarian aid. The Italian government donated "the Italian village" - lightweight prefabricated houses, medical equipment was received from the Norwegians. The Germans and Czechs sent warm clothes and food. True, as it turned out later, not all of these things reached the desired addressee. Much was stolen on the way, many were taken by people who had nothing to do with the earthquake. Nevertheless, this assistance had its impact, helped to raise the morale of the Armenian people.
True, during the restoration of Leninakan, Spitak and other cities, many things happened that negatively influenced the process of the fraternal restoration of Armenia: the Soviet Union collapsed, and the construction started gradually began to subside. Northern Armenia, once a flourishing land, gradually turned into a desert zone. Several hundred thousand residents left there, many ruins remained ruins. And ten years later, Armenia did not completely get rid of the consequences of that terrible earthquake. Until now, eighteen thousand more people, about a ninth of the former Leninakan, live in wooden temporary houses.
From the book: "HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS". ON THE. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev