KOCHARIAN REVIEWS THE DISASTER AREA

Armenpress
Dec 07 2006

GYUMRI, DECEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS: President Kocharian who traveled
today to the town of Gyumri, the capital of northwestern province of
Shirak, to commemorate victims of the destructive 1988 earthquake,
met with city officials to review the problems of the city that had
been nearly razed to ground 18 years ago and what had been done to
overcome these problems.

Hray Karapetian, head of the urban department of the municipality,
said the priority was to provide still thousands of homeless families
with apartments.

According to local authorities, 4,000 families are homeless and almost
half of them still live in what are called domiks (shacks).

Karapetian said in recent years 17,000 domiks were removed from the
town after their inhabitants received new apartments. Some 875 million
drams were released by the government to promote a housing certificate
program which enables homeless families to buy apartments in the
town. The government has earmarked 163 million drams to help homeless
families of the province living in rural areas next year. Overall the
province will receive next year about 1.8 billion drams for various
urban projects.

President Kocharian also went to see the town’s swimming pool that
was built on Hayastan Fund’s money.

Before the quake the town had two pools.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress