Mitigation of Consequences of an Earthquake in Armenia in the Winter of 1988. (To the 30 Anniversary of Accident)

Abstract

Relevance. In December 1988, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic suffered a catastrophic earthquake in the area where lived up to 1 million people. The cities of Spitak, Leninakan, Kirovokan, Stepanavan and more than 300 other settlements were totally or partly destroyed. More than 25 thousand people died. The republic lost up to 40% of the production capacity. This Armenian tragedy showed a need for a system of prevention and elimination of natural and technogenic emergency situation. Owing to the experience from elimination of medical and sanitary consequences, main principles of Disaster medicine as a new branch of health care were coined.Intention. To assess retrospectively experience of elimination of medical and sanitary consequences of December 1988 earthquake in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic using forces and assets of the USSR armed forces.Methodology. The scientific literature on mitigation of consequences of earthquakes as indexed in the Russian state library and Scientific electronic library was studied. Personal experience and experience of participation of military-medical experts in mitigation of consequences of Spitak (Armenia) earthquake was analyzed and compared with current aspects of the theory and practice of disaster medicine.Results and Discussion. Delivery of health care to the population was complicated since many medical institutions were destroyed; losses of military-medical service in earthquake area were at least 50–60 %. Soldiers and military physicians of the Transcaucasian military district were the first responders, and the leadership in mitigation of consequences was assigned mainly to the Ministry of Defense of the USSR and its Central military-medical administration. At the same time, more than 111 foreign states provided humanitarian aid. The main idea was to accumulate forces and assets for qualified medical care in close proximity to affected regions with subsequent air evacuation of injured to the cities of Yerevan, Tbilisi, Moscow and Leningrad. Further it became clear that more than 25 thousand people died, over 15 thousand were rescued from ruined buildings, 427 wounded died in hospitals, 140 thousand became disabled, 514 thousand became homeless.Conclusion. The experience gained by the USSR during mitigation of consequences of technogenic and natural disasters of the second half of the 20th century required formation of the Russian Rescue Corps (RRC) as the State committee with the subsequent transformation in the separate Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters (Emercom of Russia). To deliver health care to wounded, sick and injured during emergency situations, the All-Russian Service for Disaster Medicine was established with the Service of Disaster Medicine within the Russian Defense Ministry as an important component.