YEREVAN ‘AT RISK OF CATASTROPHIC EARTHQUAKE’
By Shakeh Avoyan

Radio Liberty. Czech Rep.
June 13 2006

Armenia is at risk of suffering another catastrophic earthquake
that would wreak havoc on its capital Yerevan and kill hundreds
of thousands of its residents, a leading Armenian seismic engineer
claimed on Tuesday.

Mikael Melkumian, who heads the Armenian Association of Seismically
Safe Construction, said the apocalyptic scenario is based on research
conducted by himself and other local seismologists. Those include
Sergey Balasanian, the late former chief of the National Seismic
Protection Service.

"We arrived at the conclusion that the territory of Yerevan is a very
high-risk area," Melkumian told a news conference. "If we have an
earthquake in Yerevan with a magnitude similar to that of the [1988]
Spitak earthquake … then almost nothing will be left of Yerevan
because according to our calculations, about 80 percent of buildings
will be destroyed and we will have about 300,000 victims," he said.

The 1988 earthquake destroyed much of northwestern Armenia, killing
more than 25,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands of others
homeless. Thousands of them still huddle in ramshackle temporary
shelters. The country had previously been hit by a similarly powerful
calamity in the 17th century. Historians say its epicenter was near
Garni, a village 20 kilometers east of Yerevan.

According to Melkumian, the Garni area is nestled on a dangerous
fault that might one day send powerful tremors to the Armenian capital.

A senior official at the National Seismic Protection Service (NSPS)
shared Melkumian’s concerns. "Professor Melkumian is one of the
best specialists in his field," the official told RFE/RL, speaking
on the condition of anonymity. "If, God forbids, Yerevan is hit by
an earthquake as powerful as the Spitak earthquake, the number of
victims could be very large indeed, because most buildings here have
become weaker, especially after Spitak, and will not resist tremors."

Balasanian, who died in a car crash last year, had argued in January
2004 that Armenia is part of a vast seismically active region where
powerful earthquakes are not uncommon. Speaking in the wake of one
such quake that razed the Iranian city of Bam, he warned that Armenia
could be hit hard by its possible powerful aftershocks in the next
few months.

The grim prediction, dismissed by the NSPS, never materialized,
though. The head of the government agency, Alvaro Antonian, argued at
the time that scientists around the world are unable to make precise
quake forecasts.

Still, seismologists and construction specialists agree that many
apartment buildings in Yerevan, built in Soviet times, are vulnerable
to natural disasters. "Yerevan’s condition is not encouraging in
that regard," said Melkumian. "The main reason for that is that
Yerevan was built in accordance with the former Soviet standards that
underestimated seismic risks."

Those standards, coupled with a poor quality of construction, have
been widely blamed for the catastrophic death toll from the 1988 quake.