On this day of year 1988, at 11:41 local time, the Spitak Earthquake occurred in the northern region of Armenia.
The earthquake measured 6.8 on the surface wave magnitude scale and had a maximum perceived intensity of X (Devastating) on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale. The region that the earthquake occurred is vulnerable to occasional large and destructive earthquakes and is part of a larger active seismic belt that stretches from the Alps to the Himalayas. Activity in the area is associated with tectonic plate boundary interaction and the source of the event was a slip of a thrust fault just to the north of Spitak.
Because of the earthquake, 40 % of Armenian population, about a million people, suffered.
Seismologists thoroughly studied the effects of the event including the main shock and aftershock fault rupture mechanisms and were on site setting up temporary seismometers before the end of 1988. Earthquake engineering experts scrutinized building construction styles and found fault in the poorly-constructed apartments and other buildings that were built during the Era of Stagnation under the rule of Leonid Brezhnev. The cities of Spitak, Leninakan (Gyumri), and Kirovakan (Vanadzor) were greatly affected with exceptionally large losses of life and damaging to devastating effects to buildings and other structures. A number of the smaller outlying villages away from the larger population centers were also severely affected.
About 20 thousand people got different kinds of wounds, 1200 of them were hospitalized and about 25 thousand people died.
Many victims were especially in Gyumri (around 15-17 thousand) and in Spitak (4 thousand) people.
About 170 industrial enterprises were destroyed.
The three cities closest to the fault rupture experienced different levels of damage. Both Leninakan and Kirovakan were roughly the same distance from the epicenter yet Leninakan had greater damage and this may be explained by a 300–400 m sedimentary layer that is present beneath Leninakan. The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s research team compared building damage between those two cities and similar results were found for stone buildings four stories or less in height, but for taller frame-stone buildings 62% were destroyed at Leninakan while only 23% of the same type collapsed at Kirovakan.
At that time 113 countries and 7 international organizations supported Armenia.
