Earthquake 20 Years On

The Armenian Madonna lives on

Published: Saturday December 13, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

Marineh Nouroyan and her three daughters, Anna, 8, Christine, 6, and Shushanik, 1, were in their fifth-floor apartment in Gyumri when the earthquake hit on December 7, 1988. They were rescued from the rubble on the second night. The photograph, at left, by Mkhitar Khachatrian, became a worldwide symbol of the Armenian people’s will to live. At right, Ms. Nouroyan appears with her grandchildren. Armen Hakobyan spoke to Ms. Nouroyan and her husband and with the photographer.

Western Diocese holds special service on 20th anniversary of Spitak earthquake

Published: Tuesday December 09, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

The Western Diocese of the Armenian Church held a special service on December 7 to bring the community together in commemorating the worst natural disaster to hit Armenia in modern times, Lory Tatoulian reports from Burbank, Calif. The service was sponsored by the Good Samaritan Organization, which aims to provide support to low-income families in Los Angeles and Armenia.

The 1988 Earthquake: an outpouring of support from California

Published: Saturday December 06, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

Lory Tatoulian looks at the work of the Western Diocese, the Western Prelacy, and the Armenian Relief Society (ARS) in the aftermath of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia.

In the earthquake zone, the tragedy continues for the homeless

Published: Saturday December 06, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

Armen Hakobyan talks to families in Gyumri who still live in temporary shacks set up after the December 7, 1988, earthquake in northern Armenia.

Twenty years after the earthquake, tomorrow’s Gyumri has a luminous face

Published: Saturday December 06, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

Reporting from the Entanik Youth Creative Center in Gyumri, Armenia, 20 years after the earthquake that devastated the city, Armen Hakobyan finds the luminous and certain faces of today's students -- and a hopeful future for northern Armenia.

In Gyumri, 20 years after the earthquake, people find, “a very important thing has broken”

Published: Saturday December 06, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

The city "center changes the future path of people's lives. Is it possible for them to change the future path of the city?" This is one of the questions sculptor Vardan Tiraturian discusses with correspondent Armen Hakobyan in Gyumri, 20 years after the earthquak

The Spitak-88 Earthquake, 20 years later: Professor Mihran Agbabian remembers

Published: Saturday December 06, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

“In the ruins of a branch of the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute, the State Engineering University of Armenia, I was told that a completely destroyed building had been the library and that more than 300 students and faculty were killed on the campus. I picked up a book covered with dirt, in Russian, and read its title, 'Resistance of Materials,'” recalls Professor Mihran Agbabian, an expert in earthquake engineering, who arrived in Spitak, Armenia, four days after the earthquake of Dec. 7, 1988.

UAF has sent $550 million to Armenia since the 1988 Spitak earthquake

Published: Saturday December 06, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

The United Armenian Fund, which has delivered over half a billion dollars worth of material goods to Armenia over the course of 19 years, represented a united response to the earthquake of Dec. 7, 1988. Alene Tchekmedyian reports from Glendale, Calif.

December 7, 1988: a date to remember

Published: Saturday December 06, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

Tamar Kevonian speaks to people who lived through the earthquake -- in Armenia and beyond -- the defining event of a generation for Armenians.

The earthquake that shook our world

Published: Friday December 05, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

For young men and women who entered college this year, the 1988 earthquake in Soviet Armenia is something that happened before they were born, just as the Soviet Union is something they did not experience. But like the Soviet legacy, the legacy of the earthquake is part of their lives in Armenia.

Shirakamut: 20 years on, more than 200 families still have no home

Published: Saturday November 29, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

After the earthquake and up until 1993, the birth rate rose in the disaster zone. People wanted to "return" the children they had lost, at least by returning their names. Parents, if both of them had survived, had children and named them after those children who had died in the earthquake.

The ground under the Soviet system was shaking

Published: Saturday November 22, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

I will never forget Christmas 1988. One morning in mid-December of that year, I asked my then-eight-year-old daughter Taleen what she wanted Santa Claus to bring her for Christmas. She answered, "My Daddy."

Remembering December 7, 1988

Published: Saturday November 22, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

I haven't thought about the specific details of The Earthquake in many, many years. When I read that the Armenian Reporter was looking for people to share their stories, my brain began to churn with the dormant memories of that day as well as the days and years that followed. To say that I was at the epicenter of the earthquake would not be geographically correct, but I was definitely at a point of convergence.

I remember

Published: Saturday November 22, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

The Spitak or Leninakan earthquake is not listed among "The Largest Earthquakes in the World since 1900." The earthquake in Armenia measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, nowhere near the magnitude 8.5 and above earthquakes that make that list. It wasn't the largest, but for us Armenians it was the greatest calamity since the Genocide of 1915.

“The buildings we constructed did not meet the seismic standards of Armenia”

Published: Saturday November 22, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

Tatul Hakobyan speaks to Vladimir Movsisian, the deputy prime minister of Armenia at the time, who lost 57 relatives in a matter of seconds. His home village was a few kilometers from the epicenter. Mr. Movsisian acknowledges, “The buildings we constructed did not meet the seismic standards of Armenia.”

Jumber Patiashvili, the former leader of Georgia, remembers the earthquake in Armenia

Published: Saturday November 15, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

When the earthquake struck Armenia on December 7, 1988, Jumber Patiashvili felt his Tbilisi office shake. Not long after, he was on a helicopter to northern Armenia. He landed in Spitak, a town he had never before seen, and found only ruins. Tatul Hakobyan traveled to Tbilisi to talk to Mr. Patiashvili.

The pain of an open wound

Published: Saturday November 08, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

"1988. December 7. 11:35 a.m. We, the first-year students of the journalism department at Yerevan State University, were in class, as usual," Armen Hakobyan writes. "However, those days were anything but usual. Those days we frequented Freedom Square and participated in the rallies for the unification of Artsakh more often then we went to class. However, that day we were in class...."