ARMENPRESS

KOCHARIAN COMMEMORATES EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS; President Robert
Kocharian traveled today to Armenia’s second largest
town of Gyumri for a commemoration of the 19th
anniversary of a destructive earthquake in 1988 that
killed some 25,000 people and razed to ground
northwestern Armenia.
Robert Kocharian laid a wreath to a monument
erected in front of Savior’s Church in central Gyumri
in commemoration of the earthquake’s victims.
Kocharian and other government officials observed a
minute of silence by a memorial before Bishop Mikael
Ajapahian, head of the Shirak Diocese of the Armenian
Church, conducted a special service of repose for all
victims of the quake.
President Robert Kocharian was accompanied by
deputy prime minister Hovik Abrahamian, Gyumri mayor
Vartan Ghukasian and regional governor Lida Nanian.
After the ceremony Kocharian spoke to local people
who came to the monument to remember their beloved and
family members.
Governor Nanian said 4,000 families in Gyumri are
still living in temporary dwellings.
Mrs, Nanian said the government will not finance
construction of new homes in the earthquake zone next
year and will spend instead 800 million drams on
buying new apartments for several hundred homeless
families.